Hey guys,
I'm over at Paperback Swap. http://rosemariewolf.paperbackswap.com
I like this site. I'm trying to get rid of some books, so if you're a member, check it out.
Later.
P.S. I'm feeling better now. Thanks for the condolences and comments everyone
Reviews
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
RIP Spike
Not three weeks after we buried Lucky, our cat Spike, gets hit by a van.
Yeah, Cindy was walking Princess and Spike was going too...something he never EVER does. This dumbass in a van was driving like he's in the fucking INDY 500. Cindy goes to grab Spike as he dashes out and the van hits him. Guy doesn't stop. He just keeps on going. And he had to have seen them.
I'm more pissed off than anything. Spike was the sweetest cat ever.
Why do these things have to happen?
Dark Moon Magick, In PRINT!
Dark Moon Magick, Book Four of the Moon Series is available in print from Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Moon-Magick-Book-4/dp/1604359536/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1
:-)
Go see!
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Moon-Magick-Book-4/dp/1604359536/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1
:-)
Go see!
Here's The Thing
I can't sleep. I've been worrying about a lot of things lately. Like my dad for example. It's been hell. Writing sucks. Work sucks more. I feel like I'm sinking into a hole that I can't climb out of. I don't know what to do.
That, and I feel a bit drunk.
Oh well. What can a girl do?
That, and I feel a bit drunk.
Oh well. What can a girl do?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
GUEST BLOGGER: Amber Leigh Williams
Hello everyone. Today my guest blogger is Amber Leigh Williams!
***
I always knew I would write about Fairhope, Alabama. My hometown is as pretty as they come. Founded on the picturesque Eastern Shore of the Mobile Bay and only a hop, skip, and jump from the white sands of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, a group called The Utopians set out to create “a town with a purpose.” It is now a lush and quiet haven for retirees and starters alike. It’s renowned for its nurturing of the arts. In fact, Fairhope is a nesting ground for writers the likes of Fannie Flagg, Sonny Brewer, W.E.B. Griffin, and Winston Groom. Events like the Art Walk, Jazz Festival, and the annual Arts & Crafts Festival draw artists and visitors from as far as Canada.
Until I sat down to write A Summer’s Hope, the first book in my Fairhope series, I realized I’d never written about a place I’ve been completely immersed in and love deeply—so deeply it’s a part of me. In Fox & Hound, the descriptions of the Louvre were based on virtual tours and pictures from websites sprinkled with a few nifty imaginings of my own to help my jewel thieves get in and out without detection. Same with Denied Origin—the Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal scenes were researched to the nth degree yet I threw in secret doors and creepy catacombs. Yet A Summer’s Hope was different. I knew my descriptions of Fairhope had to be dead-on. How do you describe a place so vivid? How do you pen to paper a place that simply breathes peace?
An answer came from Fannie Flagg herself in the book Fairhope by Cathy Donelson: “Although I’ve done my best to describe it, the truth is, Fairhope is really a state of mind and cannot be explained by using mere words. It must be felt.” On brainstorming drives, I’d wind up sitting on Fairhope’s most enduring landmark, the Pier, facing the bluff where I planned to build my heroine’s B&B, Hanna’s Inn. Upon my return home, my lost and haunted hero, Cole, solved everything with the following observation:
The Fairhope pier was empty but for the early-morning fishermen who reclined in beach chairs and dozed as their lines drooped over the railing and down into the shallow bay water below. The only sound was that of pelicans doing their far-from-graceful dive for breakfast or the heavy splash of crab nets hitting the water. The bells of buoys could be heard over the lull of silence as well as the lap of water against the boats harbored by Yardarm, the pier’s only business—a seafood restaurant—midway down the historic pier. Part of Fairhope’s most enduring residential park, it had survived numerous hurricane forces and modern industrialization.
Until I sat down to write A Summer’s Hope, the first book in my Fairhope series, I realized I’d never written about a place I’ve been completely immersed in and love deeply—so deeply it’s a part of me. In Fox & Hound, the descriptions of the Louvre were based on virtual tours and pictures from websites sprinkled with a few nifty imaginings of my own to help my jewel thieves get in and out without detection. Same with Denied Origin—the Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal scenes were researched to the nth degree yet I threw in secret doors and creepy catacombs. Yet A Summer’s Hope was different. I knew my descriptions of Fairhope had to be dead-on. How do you describe a place so vivid? How do you pen to paper a place that simply breathes peace?
An answer came from Fannie Flagg herself in the book Fairhope by Cathy Donelson: “Although I’ve done my best to describe it, the truth is, Fairhope is really a state of mind and cannot be explained by using mere words. It must be felt.” On brainstorming drives, I’d wind up sitting on Fairhope’s most enduring landmark, the Pier, facing the bluff where I planned to build my heroine’s B&B, Hanna’s Inn. Upon my return home, my lost and haunted hero, Cole, solved everything with the following observation:
The Fairhope pier was empty but for the early-morning fishermen who reclined in beach chairs and dozed as their lines drooped over the railing and down into the shallow bay water below. The only sound was that of pelicans doing their far-from-graceful dive for breakfast or the heavy splash of crab nets hitting the water. The bells of buoys could be heard over the lull of silence as well as the lap of water against the boats harbored by Yardarm, the pier’s only business—a seafood restaurant—midway down the historic pier. Part of Fairhope’s most enduring residential park, it had survived numerous hurricane forces and modern industrialization.
As he sat drinking coffee inside the long-standing restaurant, his eyes were not on the sailboats that well-to-do hobbyists had taken out early or the pelicans that swooped into view. His eyes were on a building in the distance. About a quarter of a mile south of the pier on a high, grassy ridge stood Hanna’s Inn.
The inn was built much like a waterside Tara with white, wooden walls and regal columns gracing the bayside façade. A private pier, sundeck, and boathouse were alluring benefits—not to mention the long, green sweep of landscaped lawn. It was as charming as it was striking, one of many decades-old, southern-style houses travelers admired.
From the distance, it was all its promotional brochure promised: a serene getaway. Forget the world, it had coaxed. That was what he was counting on.
Serene getaway. Blissful escape. It summed up my hometown to a t!
So plan your getaway, forget the world, and book your escape at Hanna’s Inn. Let Briar make you feel welcome and let Cole charm you to your toes. Forget the world with the release of A Summer’s Hope on May 27, available in e-book and print!
Amber Leigh Williams
http://www.amberleighwilliams.com/
Romance Across the Genres
Anytime! Anyplace! Anywhere!
Friday, May 22, 2009
Yeah, I know I don't need another social site, but I couldn't resist.
http://www.twitter.com/RoseMarieWolf
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
GUEST BLOGGER: Helen Madden
Hi everyone! Here's my guest blogger for this week, Helen Madden! I apologize as this was supposed to be up earlier today. I totally flaked!
Without further ado, here is Helen's post on podcasting!
***
What Podcasting Can Do For Writers
Guest blog post by Helen E. H. Madden
Thank you Rose Marie for giving me the opportunity to blog here today! When I first approached Rosemary about writing a blog post for her site, she told me she was looking for articles on anything related to writing or publishing. Well, I write every day, and I've got two books published, but there's a special little project I've been working on for almost two years that has really made my career.
Back in the spring of 2007, I was a writer no one had ever heard of. I had a handful of published stories to my name and one novel that had just been contracted to an e-publisher, but I was still a complete newcomer to the world of "published author". I was at that point in my career where I knew I could write and write well enough to get published. But with the new contract on the book, I was suddenly faced with a problem.
How could I get people to buy my book?
I didn't think of it in those terms at the time. It was more, "Yay! I published a book! Uh, now what?"
"Now what" turned out to be marketing said book. We all know that every author, published or unpublished, ought to have a marketing plan, a way to tell people you've just written the most wonderful book ever and then get those same people to BUY THAT BOOK! And we're all familiar with the most popular ways to market a book -- Yahoo groups, blogging, guest blogging, contests, reviews! We join FaceBook and MySpace and Twitter to connect with potential readers, and we work our butts off to get the word out about our books. But pretty soon all that marketing becomes so much work that pretty soon it starts to interfere with what we writers truly want to do, and that's write!
As a stay-at-home mom with two small children, I'm very conscious of how little time I have each day to write. Marketing my first novel cut that time in half. I spent so much time on Yahoo groups and in chats, trying to lure readers into buying my book. Meanwhile, stories I wanted to write languished in my ideas notebook because I didn't have time to do anything with them. Less writing of course meant less to offer to the audience of readers I was trying to grow. I needed free reads! I needed to get into anthologies! I needed to feed my audience! But I couldn't seem to write and promote at the same time.
Enter podcasting. For those of you not familiar with the term, a podcast is a way of delivering content to subscribers via RSS feed. It's a lot like a blog, only with audio or video added to it. People subscribe to the RSS feed, using a program like iTunes or iPodder, and can then downloads the media file straight to their computer. From there, the files can go on an iPod or other multimedia player to be enjoyed at any time.
That's a lot of techno-babble, I know. So think of it in these terms. Podcasts are like radio or TV shows that people can subscribe to and watch whenever they want. You, the author, create the show, and audiences sign up to get it.
Podcasting completely changed my marketing plan. As soon as I realized what I could do with podcasting, I came up with an idea for a show. I would write a new short story every week, record it, and upload it to a website with an RSS feed. I let a few people know the show was out there, and they subscribed to the RSS feed to listen. The show was free, so it wasn't hard to get those first few listeners. And when those listeners decided they liked the show, they told other people, who also signed up. And when those people liked the show, they told others, who signed up and told others, etc., etc., etc.
It was like killing two birds with one stone. I wasn't getting paid for these new stories I was writing, but in just a few months, I had 200 subscribers. That was 200 people who I knew wanted to hear my stories. Now, nearly two years and 91 stories later, I get close to 2000 downloads a month!
It sounds crazy, right? I've given
away 91 storiesand didn't make a cent off of any of them! But think about it. That also means I **wrote** 91 stories in the last two years. And people are **listening** to those stories. And they're sending me e-mails saying how much they like those stories. And now that my second book, Future Perfect, is out, I'm starting to get e-mails from those same people saying how much they enjoy the book! I'm no longer the author no one's ever heard of before. I'm Helen E. H. Madden, writer and producer of the popular Heat Flash Erotica Podcast! Best of all, I've already got a publisher interested in putting out a collection of the first 100 stories from my show... in e-book AND in print.
It's been a lot of work, keeping up with writing and recording a new story every week. I still have to spend some time promoting the podcast, but not nearly as much as I did trying to promote my first book. Podcasts are viral. Once you set them loose on the internet, they have a way of getting around and promoting themselves and the authors behind them. If you're looking for a new way to promote yourself and get some writing done, consider podcasting! But be forewarned. Once you start, you may suddenly find yourself the proud author of a popular new show. And Heaven only knows what that will do for your writing career!
Links for Helen E. H. Madden
The Heat Flash Erotica Podcast - http://www.heatflash.libsyn.com
Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica - http://www.logical-lust.com/futureperfect.html
Writing website - http://www.helenehmadden.com
The Adventures Of Cynical Woman - http://www.theadventuresofcynicalwoman.blogspot.com
Without further ado, here is Helen's post on podcasting!
***
What Podcasting Can Do For Writers
Guest blog post by Helen E. H. Madden
Thank you Rose Marie for giving me the opportunity to blog here today! When I first approached Rosemary about writing a blog post for her site, she told me she was looking for articles on anything related to writing or publishing. Well, I write every day, and I've got two books published, but there's a special little project I've been working on for almost two years that has really made my career.
Back in the spring of 2007, I was a writer no one had ever heard of. I had a handful of published stories to my name and one novel that had just been contracted to an e-publisher, but I was still a complete newcomer to the world of "published author". I was at that point in my career where I knew I could write and write well enough to get published. But with the new contract on the book, I was suddenly faced with a problem.
How could I get people to buy my book?
I didn't think of it in those terms at the time. It was more, "Yay! I published a book! Uh, now what?"
"Now what" turned out to be marketing said book. We all know that every author, published or unpublished, ought to have a marketing plan, a way to tell people you've just written the most wonderful book ever and then get those same people to BUY THAT BOOK! And we're all familiar with the most popular ways to market a book -- Yahoo groups, blogging, guest blogging, contests, reviews! We join FaceBook and MySpace and Twitter to connect with potential readers, and we work our butts off to get the word out about our books. But pretty soon all that marketing becomes so much work that pretty soon it starts to interfere with what we writers truly want to do, and that's write!
As a stay-at-home mom with two small children, I'm very conscious of how little time I have each day to write. Marketing my first novel cut that time in half. I spent so much time on Yahoo groups and in chats, trying to lure readers into buying my book. Meanwhile, stories I wanted to write languished in my ideas notebook because I didn't have time to do anything with them. Less writing of course meant less to offer to the audience of readers I was trying to grow. I needed free reads! I needed to get into anthologies! I needed to feed my audience! But I couldn't seem to write and promote at the same time.
Enter podcasting. For those of you not familiar with the term, a podcast is a way of delivering content to subscribers via RSS feed. It's a lot like a blog, only with audio or video added to it. People subscribe to the RSS feed, using a program like iTunes or iPodder, and can then downloads the media file straight to their computer. From there, the files can go on an iPod or other multimedia player to be enjoyed at any time.
That's a lot of techno-babble, I know. So think of it in these terms. Podcasts are like radio or TV shows that people can subscribe to and watch whenever they want. You, the author, create the show, and audiences sign up to get it.
Podcasting completely changed my marketing plan. As soon as I realized what I could do with podcasting, I came up with an idea for a show. I would write a new short story every week, record it, and upload it to a website with an RSS feed. I let a few people know the show was out there, and they subscribed to the RSS feed to listen. The show was free, so it wasn't hard to get those first few listeners. And when those listeners decided they liked the show, they told other people, who also signed up. And when those people liked the show, they told others, who signed up and told others, etc., etc., etc.
It was like killing two birds with one stone. I wasn't getting paid for these new stories I was writing, but in just a few months, I had 200 subscribers. That was 200 people who I knew wanted to hear my stories. Now, nearly two years and 91 stories later, I get close to 2000 downloads a month!
It sounds crazy, right? I've given
away 91 storiesand didn't make a cent off of any of them! But think about it. That also means I **wrote** 91 stories in the last two years. And people are **listening** to those stories. And they're sending me e-mails saying how much they like those stories. And now that my second book, Future Perfect, is out, I'm starting to get e-mails from those same people saying how much they enjoy the book! I'm no longer the author no one's ever heard of before. I'm Helen E. H. Madden, writer and producer of the popular Heat Flash Erotica Podcast! Best of all, I've already got a publisher interested in putting out a collection of the first 100 stories from my show... in e-book AND in print.
It's been a lot of work, keeping up with writing and recording a new story every week. I still have to spend some time promoting the podcast, but not nearly as much as I did trying to promote my first book. Podcasts are viral. Once you set them loose on the internet, they have a way of getting around and promoting themselves and the authors behind them. If you're looking for a new way to promote yourself and get some writing done, consider podcasting! But be forewarned. Once you start, you may suddenly find yourself the proud author of a popular new show. And Heaven only knows what that will do for your writing career!
Links for Helen E. H. Madden
The Heat Flash Erotica Podcast - http://www.heatflash.libsyn.com
Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica - http://www.logical-lust.com/futureperfect.html
Writing website - http://www.helenehmadden.com
The Adventures Of Cynical Woman - http://www.theadventuresofcynicalwoman.blogspot.com
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
GUEST BLOGGER: Janis Susan May
My guest blogger this week is Janis Susan May. Please give her a big welcome!
For example, novels of mine available now are THE FAIR AMAZON (just released this week) and SECOND CHANCE, both traditional English Regency romances from Awe-Struck Ebooks. PASSION’S CHOICE, a sensual time-travel romance set in Ancient Egypt, and THE OTHER HALF OF YOUR HEART, a contemporary romantic mystery adventure set in my old home town of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, both available from Red Rose Publishing. DARK MUSIC and ECHOES IN THE DARK, two traditional gothic suspenses set in the 1960s from Vintage Romance Publishing. And lastly, what is probably the book of my heart, a memoir written in a postmortem collaboration with my late mother called THE LAND OF HEART’S DELIGHT, published by Swimming Kangaroo Books.
I think that’s all.
Oh, and I have a children’s book coming out (as of now) in January or February of 2010 called DANNY AND THE DUST BUNNIES. For once my bad housekeeping came in handy!
About all I’ve missed is straight horror and straight mystery, but I’ve written both and am currently shopping them around.
While I admire those who can write one genre consistently, I don’t see how they do it. I won’t even attempt it. Simply keeping track of their pseudonyms and attendant personalities must be a fairly full-time job! I’ll just keep using Janis Susan May for everything and worry about using another name when I get rich and famous.
With one exception. My husband is a big mystery buff, so I’ve decided for several reasons that when I start selling in straight mystery I’ll use the name Janis Patterson. It will honor him… and, with any luck at all, it will get me shelved next to James Patterson! You’re known by the company you keep.
***
Notes from a Sub-divided Psyche, or a Rose by Any Other Name…
Mention a major author’s name and it’s almost like naming their genre. Grisham – legal thrillers. King – horror/thriller. Koontz the same. Christie – mystery. Patterson – mystery/thriller. Brennan – romantic thriller. Roberts – romance. The list goes on. To be taken without prejudice in another genre, most authors have decided to take another name and persona for that genre to avoid disappointing/confusing their established readership. It’s called branding.
Not that I am anywhere near being a major author, but if I have to take a pseudonym for every genre I write… Ack! I don’t know if there are that many names!
The simple truth is that I get bored writing the same genre all the time, and if the writer is bored, you can bet the reader will be too. Not good, and something I have tried most assiduously to avoid, both for the reader’s sake as well as my own.
Mention a major author’s name and it’s almost like naming their genre. Grisham – legal thrillers. King – horror/thriller. Koontz the same. Christie – mystery. Patterson – mystery/thriller. Brennan – romantic thriller. Roberts – romance. The list goes on. To be taken without prejudice in another genre, most authors have decided to take another name and persona for that genre to avoid disappointing/confusing their established readership. It’s called branding.
Not that I am anywhere near being a major author, but if I have to take a pseudonym for every genre I write… Ack! I don’t know if there are that many names!
The simple truth is that I get bored writing the same genre all the time, and if the writer is bored, you can bet the reader will be too. Not good, and something I have tried most assiduously to avoid, both for the reader’s sake as well as my own.
For example, novels of mine available now are THE FAIR AMAZON (just released this week) and SECOND CHANCE, both traditional English Regency romances from Awe-Struck Ebooks. PASSION’S CHOICE, a sensual time-travel romance set in Ancient Egypt, and THE OTHER HALF OF YOUR HEART, a contemporary romantic mystery adventure set in my old home town of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, both available from Red Rose Publishing. DARK MUSIC and ECHOES IN THE DARK, two traditional gothic suspenses set in the 1960s from Vintage Romance Publishing. And lastly, what is probably the book of my heart, a memoir written in a postmortem collaboration with my late mother called THE LAND OF HEART’S DELIGHT, published by Swimming Kangaroo Books.
I think that’s all.
Oh, and I have a children’s book coming out (as of now) in January or February of 2010 called DANNY AND THE DUST BUNNIES. For once my bad housekeeping came in handy!
About all I’ve missed is straight horror and straight mystery, but I’ve written both and am currently shopping them around.
While I admire those who can write one genre consistently, I don’t see how they do it. I won’t even attempt it. Simply keeping track of their pseudonyms and attendant personalities must be a fairly full-time job! I’ll just keep using Janis Susan May for everything and worry about using another name when I get rich and famous.
With one exception. My husband is a big mystery buff, so I’ve decided for several reasons that when I start selling in straight mystery I’ll use the name Janis Patterson. It will honor him… and, with any luck at all, it will get me shelved next to James Patterson! You’re known by the company you keep.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
RIP Lucky, May 7, 2009
One of our dogs, Lucky, finally went to rest today. She was 17 years old. She had been suffering for the longest time. This past week, when we got back from our trip to Niagara (pictures coming, btw) we all noticed she wasn't eating much and she was having trouble walking. We figured it was a matter of time. We made an appointment for Friday to take her in and put her to sleep, so she wouldn't suffer any more...but it turns out we didn't need to.
Today at 5:15, she died. We all knew it was coming, so she was surrounded by her family. I'm sad, true, but I'm also glad. Now, she can run and play and not feel any pain.
Rest in Peace, Lucky. We will miss you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
