"Chapter Books" on Amazon

Okay.....

What exactly is a "chapter book"?  A chapter book, my friends, is a book that costs 0.99-$1.99 USD and has a length from 25-55 pages long. It's marketed as a "series". But what you're paying for in essence is just a chapter or two.

What's wrong with this?

Nothing, I suppose. But in the reviews, I've noticed that this angers a lot of readers. Especially when unknown writers tend to do this. Why should a customer pay 0.99 for a chapter and have to continue paying in order to finish the entire series? There are plenty of books out there that are equitably priced and you get the entire story in one read.

I've read some amazing "Chapter books" out there but I'm letting you know authors, you take the risk of alienating future buyers.

If you're interested in writing a series, then do so. But give your readers more than just a few chapters at a time.

Writing Historical Fiction: An Inside Look To Writing Hannah

Authenticity!!!!!! That's the number one thing that authors obsess about when writing historical fiction. If someone asked you to write a historical fiction piece about the year 2012, well, I'd doubt that you would have a problem with that....provided that you're reading this relatively recently.

Now try writing about Medieval France. Unless you have an obsession with that period of time and know everything about it (which would really work in your favor) you'd have to do research....and lots of it.

Research? What language did they use when they spoke? Murder will out is a phrase used in Shakespeare's time but your character stating Blessings in disguise will cause your readers to scratch their heads. Unless your book is centered around the American Revolution.

What type of clothing did they wear? Food? Children drinking small beer in Colonial America would be considered the norm but would be frowned on in 2012. The water wasn't all that great and only a fool would sit there and drink it. Great way to get sick, I might add.

All of that must be taken in consideration. I did a great deal of research for this time period and I only pray that Hannah feels authentic to the reader. What I would highly recommend is to read plenty of books from that time period to get a feel for the time period that you're writing for. There are also great websites out there that help you with clothing, speaking phrases, and daily activities in the time periods that you're writing about.

It also helps to use a great note taking application to keep track of all the websites and notes that you're going to take. My favorite application is EVERNOTE ! I use it to clip websites, links, pictures, etc. that I will need to work.

Hannah is coming soon to amazon.com!

Almost Finished With Second Drafts

I am almost done with my third book, "Nowhere"and hopefully it will be available in September in this year.

One thing I would stress to new authors is this is the time to go over your book with a fine toothed comb. This is the time that you need to catch errors and grammatical issues. Don't be so in love with your words and the story that your mind will overlook the imperfections.

Your readers will take you to task over such issues. While you may not think that its a big thing, it is to your readers. There are lots of voracious readers out there and they feel cheated if you don't give it every thing you've got. They are out there spending their hard earned money on your books.

I ran across an Amazon forum one day where the authors were complaining about Amazon and how it was taking too long to update and publish their titles. It was taking 48 hours or more when normally it is 75 percent less of that time.

Many authors, including myself, would upload a manuscript, notice a mistake in it later, then try to upload a new one. Because of this glitch, people were buying the wrong book instead of the one with the errors fixed.

This led to horrible reviews of readers complaining that the book had many spelling errors and typos. My thing? GET IT FREAKING RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Read your book over and over again like a person looking at the book with fresh eyes. Put it down for a week and then read every single word again before you hit that PUBLISH button.

Get it right the first time and correct those errors before your readers string you up by the neck.






Tea of the day: Acai Berry and Blueberry Tea

Evernote

Evernote is where I keep ideas for stories and articles that I write. It will save entire clippings of items and pictures that you find on the internet and store it for you. I have seven different notebooks in my Evernote that EFFORTLESSLY sync to my Android phone and computer! Even my iPad! I recommend it for writers to use if you want to keep your notes organized. I used to keep all of my notes in Microsoft One Note. Ingenious program but I had it installed on my infamous Dell laptop. I lost everything, including some notes for upcoming screenplays that I've been working on. I had the plots and characters fleshed out from here to next Sunday...all gone.