cornerofmadness

So at the book festival, I did more than buy books. I sat in the author panels and learned things. As

ysilme rightly pointed out last week, I oversimplified a bit about the blurbs. The authors I spoke to agreed with me, they do in fact get to write their own blurbs or at least input on them. Those were mostly, like me, indie publishers. Those with the bigger publishing houses (Kensington, a huge mystery publisher was one of the worst offenders of everything I'm going to talk about.) had almost no input in their blurbs.

That said, no one thought that their blurbs didn't represent their books. THeir titles and book covers on the other hand are a completely different thing. I knew there wasn't much input on covers. Points to the total asshole Terry Goodkind made of himself (again) that I posted a while back. Authors get very little say in covers. Like me they all fill out spec paperwork describing their characters, the plot etc. Unlike me most of them with the bigger publishers get an email saying here's your cover. Hope you like it (unsaid: if you don't you're screwed) I have SO MUCH more say than they do. THe one that bothered me most was via Kensington, with an African American author with an African American character where the cover had a blonde girl and a cat and she was told tough. Cats sell cozies (there's no cat in the book).

Yes, many cozy mystery readers love cats. But you know what publishers? We also aren't idiots We don't like being lied to and a cover DOES make a problem. If you put a giant cat on it and there's no cat we're going to be peeved (at the poor author who had no control) .

While I might be happy to have someone title my damn book for me, I know a lot of my author friends would hate that. Guess what, it's probably going to happen. The general consensus was, we don't even bother with titles, just slap any old thing on it because someone else is going to title your book. I find that baffling. Granted some authors (me) struggle with titles, many of us come up with great titles and unless it's an outstanding one, we're going to lose it. Ah well.

Let's have those links

From around the web

The Most Important Writing Advice You Need Right Now Chuck Wendig so NSFW

Nine Manuscript Editing Software Programs You Should Consider

Does It Matter How You Publish Or Who Your Competition Is? I'm not sure I agree with it entirely but it has good points.

Books without boundaries This one IS self serving for BookBaby but it makes an excellent point. I read a lot of author newsletters and SO many of them are publishing strictly with Amazon and only with KU.

From Betty

To Heed or Not to Heed: Tips on When to Listen to Editors As Betty said, timely for me.

Mining Our Characters’ Wounds I need time to sit and really appreciate this one because I need this in my work.

The Queen of Charts: Sharing One Way to Plan a Story This was a fun argument on one panel between Leanna Renee Hieber and another UF writer (whose name I didn't get). Hieber and I could be writing buddies, pantsing it and writing starting at midnight. THe other loved her charts.

Indie Authors: How to Price Your Book for Optimal Success! Indie in the sense of self publishing

How Facebook Saved my Work in Progress

What Do You Mean I Need More Description? Somewhere

evil_little_dog is laughing because this time it's

tinhutlady telling me 'description, you dumbass, give us description' (okay they tell me much more nicely of course but at the end of the day it comes down to the same thing).

When You’re Not Okay: A Mental Health Checkup for Writers Let's be honest, I haven't been okay in a long time.

Why Storytelling Advice Is Such a Mess

Yearly Word Count-

37133 / 100000 words. 37% done!

Haunted Hills -

52899 / 60000 words. 88% done!

Sacred Kin - edited up to ch 5

Saint Augustine Saturnalia -

894 / 5000 words. 18% done!

SPlinters - Ch 2 at the critique group. I've done squat all otherwise.

Rose Island - currently on hiatus