Never judge a book by its cover... part 1

Never judge a book by its cover. Now however, maybe that should be never judge a book by its publisher. With so many authors choosing to go the independent publishing route our available reading material seems to have grown exponentially in the last year.

While I do believe that quite a few of the self published works out there are more of the vanity publishing style, as in no one but family and friends would willing read them. There are several really great authors that got their start through writing online fan-fiction. Some have been picked up by publishing houses (I was going to say real publishers but that doesn't apply anymore).

I have piles upon piles and boxes upon boxes of books. I know this because I have just finished packing everything up for a move. Out of the hundreds (thousands) of books that I own I could only find one small box of books (30-40) that I was willing to donate to one of the local charities. All of those physical books don't include the audio books on my computer or all the fan-fiction stories that I have read over the last twenty years.

When you walk into your local bookstore what draws your eye to a book? Is it the bright colors of background and title? The image on the front? Is it knowing which author you are looking for? Or is it a recommendation from the bookseller behind the counter?

With all the online purchases of books that are made how do we get those recommendations now? How do we find that new author? You know what I mean...that author that isn't part of Oprah's book club or some other celebrity endorsement.

The publishing houses have many ways of promoting their authors (and more funds than most independent authors). One way is to review the works of these authors on blogs (but who knows which blogs to go to for this? I hope that mine makes that blog list as it ages.) The main way is for us as readers to take a few minutes out of our day and post reviews on the online bookstores sites.

If you loved a book let other people know by recommending it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Borders websites. Yes I know there are other re-sellers but these seem to be the main three.

I am grateful to Zoe Winters for her guest blog post this last month and look forward to many more guest blogs from other independent authors. If you are an author willing to do a guest blog for our site please let us know. The only requirement is that each blog start with the following three sentences.

I was.......
I am........
I will be...

So in keeping with that here is my own for today (it changes regularly)...

I was a drone (playing tetris) in the electronics industry.
I am a full-time student and mother.
I will be me (whoever that ends up being as I grow in my own mind).

I got a little sidetracked so I will post more thoughts on book covers and independent publishers next week.

Good Books, Good Wine, Good Friends What Could be Better.

Book Review - Moon Dance by J.R. Rain

Lately, I had been thinking that vampire stories were overdone.  I have my favorite authors in the genre and honestly wasn't looking for anymore.  It seems that authors don't want to write about normal people anymore.  The stories all seem to have vampires, witches, wizards, and zombies in them. I was looking for an author that wrote normal stories not paranormal.  Spies, police officers, detectives, these were the heroes that I was looking for.

I first ran across J.R. Rain's work on myspace.  I had a friend request waiting in my inbox.  I accepted and went to look up his work.  Wow, what an impressive list of reviewers, what could my thoughts possibly mean after so many great authors have said such positive things about his work.

While I was debating which book to start with for our book club I got the opportunity to read Moon Dance.  I have never been overly impressed with first person fiction, with a few notable exceptions. Maybe, because I never felt like I could become the character.

Right there Mr.Rain's story had two strikes against it.  Strike One - Main character is a vampire (paranormal).  Ball One - Detective.  Strike Two - First Person narration.  The count was 2-1 and I was waiting for that third strike to fly directly over the plate and pound into the catchers mitt, instead Mr. Rain's story connected directly with the ball (my mind) and knocked it out of the park.  

Mr. Rain managed to make me fall so far into the character that I couldn't put the story down once I started reading. I laughed at the reference to The Greatest American Hero and remembered sitting in front of the TV to watch it as a child.  I even cried during some of the scenes where Samantha Moon was upset.

Samantha Moon is a fairly new vampire. She is just an everyday woman trying to juggle a husband, her children, and working out of her home as a detective.  This story shows us how she copes with these normal challenges while coming to terms with the fact that she is indeed a vampire.

With a teaser like this how can a book fail to pull a reader in.

Blood....
I ripped open his flannel shirt, buttons pinging
everywhere. His chest was awash in a sea of caked red.
The hole in his chest was a dark moon in a vermilion sky.
His blood would contain alcohol, as he had been
drinking. I didn’t care. The blood would be pure enough.
Straight from the source. The ideal way to feed. Then
again, ideal was relative. Ideally I would be feasting on
turkey lasagna.
I dipped my head down, placed my lips over the massive
wound in his chest, and drank....


The visually compelling way that Rain writes was pure enjoyment to read.  As shown above the sky wasn't just plain every day red it was a vermilion (brilliant scarlet red) sky.

After finishing this I wanted to know more.  More about Mr Kingsley Fulcrum, more about Randolph ,more about Detective Sherbert, and more about Fang.  I just wanted to know so much more about this fictional world that had managed to pull me so completely in.

I bought Teeth as an ebook. This short story is a little bit more information about one of the characters that inhabit Samantha's world.  The story is very well written and I wont say any more than that because I am still a little bit confuzzled and bemused by it.

I am eagerly awaiting Vampire Moon the next book in Samantha Moon's life that J.R. Rain has coming out soon.   

While I await that book I will be adding some of Mr. Rain's other stories to my library.  Check out his site at jrrain.com.

Good Books, Good Wine, Good Friends What Could be Better.

Semi-Rant: Self Publishing

Please oh please for the sake of my sanity;  If you are going to self publish have someone else proof (beta) your work before you do so.

I have read several stories lately and just because it is free doesn't mean that it is good.  It doesn't mean that it is bad either.  However, one would think that if an author was going to go to the trouble of publishing and promoting their work that they would take the time to make sure that the glaringly obvious errors are removed first.  Remember that you only get one chance to make a first impression.  As an author you want it to be a good one or at least not one where the reader is asking the following question:

Can this author even read or spell?

Simply changing  the spelling of a word from two (to) too or even to, changes the entire meaning of the sentence.  While spell check may be your friend it tends to miss correctly spelled words used incorrectly. 

The vile viol player drank poison from a vial.  (Correct usage)

I actually haven't noticed any stories that have mixed up these words but then how often do we use any of the three anymore.

He bore down on her bare naked body on the bear skin rug.  (Correct usage)

Her bear naked body is a phrase I am tired of seeing in any story.  A bear is a four legged omnivorous mammal.  If she is naked than she is bare naked.

She tried to emulate the movie Wickerman by immolating her ex-boyfriend. (Correct usage)

I am tired of reading stories where Sue is trying to immolate her best friend.  I keep expecting Sue to reach for the torches and instead she is trying to copy (emulate) her best friend.

I have been checking out some of the free stories that OmniLit has to offer trying to find more new authors to follow.  There will always be authors that I will go out and buy their books at full retail just to get my hands on them.  Laurel K Hamilton (Gentry series), Karen Marie Moning (Fever series), Jim Butcher (anything he writes) being just a couple of them.  I buy anthologies that include some of my favorite authors so that I can get exposed to some new authors.  I am not willing to put out eight dollars or so for a paperback of an unknown author unless it has been highly recommended by someone I trust.

When I found OmniLits freeebies I was excited that here were some excerpts and short stories from some authors that I hadn't heard of.  I read several that were passable (each of the stories was between 20-40 pages) and several that just outright sucked ass.  There were one or two gems in the mix and I will be reading more from those authors.  In fact I already went and bought another ebook by one of the authors.  Though I wish I had realized it was only another 35 page story before spending six dollars on it the story and plot were well thought out and written.

But you know what I find worse than self published authors with these mistakes?  I absolutely get pissy when I have bought a real book (real book vs ebook vs fanfiction...discussion for later maybe) at an actual brick and mortar store (or online) and I get to reading it and find the same sort of idiotic errors in it.  If a publisher wants to continue selling me books they had better take the time to have someone proof reading them for stupid errors.  Heck, send me a copy (efile or whatever) and I'll proof it for you.

Even the best authors have issues.  One of Ms. Hamilton's books went out with the phrase "insert here" as the inscription on a ring.  If I remember right she was trying to think of the right phrase to inscribe and somehow it didn't get inserted into the book before it went out.  In the end this is a funny slip up but if I had been reading her work for the first time I might not have been willing to read her stories again.  Which would have been a shame because she writes very well.  I just wish that one of her book tours would make it to Boise, Idaho so that I could personally thank her for the many hours of enjoyment her books have given me.

I have a couple of my own stories in the works.  I figured I had better start writing since I keep changing the plot lines of the books as I read them.  Sometimes I have been finding a secondary character much more interesting than the authors main character.

I know my weaknesses when it comes to writing.  My mind gets ahead of my typing (or writing) and sometimes details that are in my head don't end up on the computer screen (or paper) like they should.  This causes "magic moments" where the reader is left wondering how my character managed to get from point A to point B.  (No tele-portation didn't happen, doesn't exist in this story).

My grammar usage isn't always spot on either.  I can never remember whether the comma (period) goes inside the quotation marks or outside of it.  If I ever get to the point that anyone other than my critique group sees my work I will have someone else read it before I even think of sending it off to an agent, publisher, or try self-publishing.

I will continue looking for my next batch of favorite authors.  Just please, don't make me claw my eyes out from obvious mistakes in the mean time.  If so I will be listening exclusively to audio books since I don't think I would find learning braille at this time in my life the easiest thing.

Audio books are great but some books are just meant to be read.



Good Books, Good Wine, Good Friends
What Could be Better.