Ok, I could not resist doing this to these adorable seagulls. I took the picture at the Keyport, NJ waterfront. It looks like the are gossiping about something quite juicy, so of course I had to imagine it. Click on the picture to make it larger 🙂
Photo by Maria Diaz
I am just kidding; however, I am extremely happy to announce that Moonlit Valley is available through Amazon (US, UK, EU) in paperback or e-book (Kindle or PDF). It will also be available via extended distribution through the Ingram, Baker & Taylor catalog, in about 6-8 weeks, meaning that you will be able to order it at your favorite bookstore. I will be celebrating tonight, of course. Here is the link to Moonlit Valley
You can also find it here – Moonlit Valley, and through Smashwords here for all of you who have ereaders in the ePub format (nook, apple, kobo…), Sony, palm, and other electronic formats.
This is a picture of the cover,
MOONLIT VALLEY
And the back cover,
And a spread picture (because I’m so excited),
Here is a bit about it,
Moonlit Valley
Rose Carrigan never imagined what awaited her when she left her New Jersey hometown to live in an old farmhouse located in a small southern town called Moonlit Valley. After a series of mysterious clues and unfortunate events, once more, her world turns upside down. This time, the man who she loves, Jeremy Sandbeck, her irresistible and seductive husband, is the one responsible. When she discovers his identity, she must decide between love and destiny, defying the surreal world that she has discovered. Jeremy struggles with love, and what he
thinks is his true supernatural and divine duty.
I hope you like it. I will keep you updated.
Slow as a turtle; this is how I describe the process. Well, so far I have worked in getting Moonlit Valley ready to publish, and in the meantime, I have been working on small changes and tidying up of Ramblings of the Spirit. I started writing The Book of Sharon, and can’t wait to have all these pieces that may seem apart now, fall together in harmony. Self publishing is tons of work, that I can tell you.
I came across this beautiful song and immediately thought of Moonlit Valley – it fits the story perfectly, so I wanted to share it with you. It is “No Sound But the Wind” by the Editors. It is an awesome song. I love their songs. Here is a video that I found in YouTube from theseboredkids, who did a great job with it.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. In the meantime, I will go back to work 🙂
For the purpose of this post, let me start by defining an introvert as someone who enjoys solitude, quiet environments, and working by himself/herself as opposed to someone who enjoys live and upbeat/crazy environments and group work, as well as the spotlight. You may be an introvert and love to socialize, and not necessarily consider yourself a shy person. For example, you may prefer the coziness of a small book club to an auditorium full of people, discussing the same topic, and you may prefer one on one interaction to group action.
These days, even if you are an introvert writer, you will be faced with making choices when it comes to selecting how you will market your book. Technology and the internet opened the doors to many good authors allowing them to share their work – doors that once were slammed in their faces by traditional publishing. In a world where viral can happen to anyone, introvert authors may find themselves in the spotlight, without even wanting it. With it comes the interviews, the shows, podcasts, invitations, speaking engagements … and so on. What is an introvert author to do? Well, he/she may go with the flow (even if it becomes too much), or he/she may become selective and do things according to a level of “self-preservation” and comfort.
If you are on the “quiet side” don’t let the noise of the “new way of doing things” prevent you from following your dream. When it comes to marketing your book, you don’t have to do what everyone does. The purpose of marketing something is just to put the word out there so people know it is available and can make an informed decision whether to purchase it or not (in the case of a product) or to contribute to it or not ( in the case of charity or money-raising events). You can tailor the marketing to the activities that you enjoy doing, and take advantage of social networking and technology to do them more efficiently. For example, lets say that there is no way that you will have your face plastered via your YouTube channel to reach readers, because the thought of it makes you sick; however, you love blogging and you love forums, and this is a way by which you can achieve the same marketing results. You may not want to go on a book tour(s), but you have no trouble with doing one on one interviews, or small group readings.
Those were just examples on how to tailor marketing to the activities that you enjoy, thus eliminating the dislike factor and making the process enjoyable. People prefer a genuine you than a “stiff/scared forced to do this” you. When I watch informative videos on YouTube, I go for the ones that show me a down to earth person who seems genuine and seems to be enjoying what he/she is doing. I stay away from the clips in which a stiff person is trying to sell me something and making a fake effort so it doesn’t come across that way. My point is, being genuine at what you do, even if it is only one activity, will turn better results than doing tons of activities that you don’t enjoy just because that is what the “experts” say you should do to sell more books, have more traffic, and gain readers.
If you don’t like the spotlight, you can always dim the lights to your level of comfort. You never know, maybe the activities that you enjoy will lead you to activities that you didn’t know you enjoy. When marketing your book, do the things that you love to spread the good news and be genuine, generous, and thankful about it. The guts to live your dream takes many times, just showing up to what matters in life – to what matters to you, and not adopting a one size fits all approach.
Blue Ridge (Photo credit: Ethan.K)
Just a quick post on the recently released list from SELC – Southern Environmental Law Center, which of course targets the South; however, three out of 10 relate to Virginia,
Here is the article’s link where you can find pictures as well as detailed information on each one of the 10 issues (click each picture).
I am writing this post for all new writers who are thinking about joining writing sites. When I started writing online, I wasn’t sure of what venue to choose so I selected a few popular sites to write for them, thinking that this would be beneficial for my writing career. Unfortunately, I started to notice that one of those sites – called Triond, started allowing very bad writing – mostly from people who wanted to make a quick buck and didn’t care about writing garbage and ill edited articles. The staff let those articles go through, without editing them. Some of these articles were actually unreadable – just picture a string of keywords with no meaning to them. Fearing that associating with that site would hurt my career, I contacted them and asked that my content be removed and my account canceled/closed. My account was closed, and at that time, it seemed that my articles were blocked and they did not show as published. This happened more than two years ago.
Today, while reviewing some links on this blog, I came across old content that had a link to one of those articles. I clicked on it and to my surprise, the article did show up published. I kept clicking on some of the old links and most of them were showing active. Not only that, but there were all kinds of ads running on them, making Triond money. I am disgusted. Immediately, I clicked the contact link and wrote to them asking that my content be removed or blocked. Lets see what happens. I hope I get a response this time.
In the meantime, my face and work is plastered on that site, along with all the craziness and bad writing going on. There are very good writers on that site too, not all is bad writing, but a huge percentage is bad written content, and that is the only reason I wanted to disassociate my name from it. I never had a problem with the site otherwise; I just did not agree with their practice of bad editing and letting anything go through to publishing.
Let my experience serve you as a measure to choose a writing site very wisely and carefully, to avoid situations like this one. I hope that Triond listens and blocks all of my content, which they are not authorized to publish anymore.
Those of you who have followed this blog for some time have read some posts about the proposed uranium mining in Virginia, where I will be moving soon to start a farmette. Well I have been very concerned about this for many reasons – health, Virginia unsuitable climate for mining, a possible scenario for great contamination, and other issues, including our proximity to the proposed site, at only a few miles.
Well, today I am sharing the good news and that is – THE PROPOSAL WAS DEFEATED! At least for now, but this is great news. Here is where you can read about it – Uranium Mining Proposal Suffers Major Defeat/Keep the Ban. I am extremely happy about this, and I am thanking again all of you who voted to keep the ban in uranium mining in Virginia. I will keep you informed on the latest developments. If you want to read more on this important issue that affects other states such as North Carolina, since its supply of water comes from Virginia, in part, you can visit the Keep the Ban website.
Let me start by saying that the path to a writing career requires a certain amount of study and learning, and tons of practice. I say a certain amount because, writing should be your primary focus. Learning and reading other authors will teach you a great deal; however, it is by writing and rewriting that you will learn. I wish I knew this when I started on this journey, it would have save me some precious time, but no ones knows it all. With this in mind, from time to time, I try to share with you any blogs or sites that I think would have saved me much time, if I had known of them earlier. This is in the hopes of saving you some time so you can embrace your writing. Although everyone learns in different ways and pace, I can tell you that in my case I had to sift between much hay and debris to get to the grain. For me the learning process was exhausting at times. This is the reason I get so excited when I come across a blog or website that gives me the feeling of “Wow, I wish I had found you sooner.” Here are a few that will certainly teach you or inform you in the right direction.
I don’t know how long these sites have been around but I recognize that these are professionals in their craft, and reading them early in your writing journey will help a great deal. I hope that you enjoy these sites, as much as I do.
Let me start by saying that when you decide to embark on the voyage to self-publish, plenty will undermine your confidence. As a self-publisher, you will be acting as the writer, the contractor to find an editor, cover artist, interior designer/cover designer … and much more. If you are doing all this yourself, there is much to learn, little time, and tons of roadblocks, that is, if you want to end up with a product that looks professionally created. Print on demand may be inexpensive, and if you are just doing e-book format, then your initial expense could be $0.00. However, this doesn’t mean that you will end up with an excellent product. If you are a quasi-perfectionist, you may end up becoming your biggest roadblock.
So far, I have embraced the path to self-publishing and I have worked hard towards publishing my first book. Since I decided to start the process, the rule of plenty has made its presence in my life. I have had plenty to learn, plenty to do, plenty to cry about, plenty to ignore, plenty to work against, plenty to resist, plenty to embrace, plenty to doubt, plenty to stumble upon, plenty to create, plenty to hate, plenty to whine about, plenty to change, plenty to redo, plenty to cry about again, plenty to disagree with, plenty to fear, plenty to deal with – computer viruses, computer hackers, computer issues, software malfunction, hacked accounts … And it may have seem that all of this has happened at once. However, I’ve also had plenty to like, plenty to enjoy, and plenty to love. Even that my confidence might have been undermined by the Rule of Plenty, I wouldn’t do it any other way.
I have chosen this path, and it is not an easy one. I have found that the only way to beat the Rule of Plenty is to embrace Randomness when it shows up, and keep going. Yes, embracing the random is the only medicine to cure a bad dose of the Rule of Plenty. So, if you have been getting an incredible dose of the Rule of Plenty lately, don’t despair, embrace the randomness of it all, and push forward. Sooner than later, there will be plenty to celebrate.
Yesterday, I set on a mission – to create an author logo/nameplate for my book covers. This may be a bit unconventional, but I wanted to create a cohesive way to identify my author name with future book covers. I’ve noticed that most authors, except a few, use a free style when it comes to have their names printed on a book cover. I never understood this, and while I agree that a book’s title is more important and the first thing you notice, besides the art cover, I like the idea of matching an author’s name to a style/logo that you can recognize. I’ve noticed that Nicholas Sparks has a cohesive flow to his name on the covers of the books, and just by catching a glimpse at one of his covers, I already recognize the image and associate it with his work. He is one of the few that I’ve noticed doing this, although not in all his books. If you check out a few book covers from different authors you will see what I mean.
I came up with a nameplate that I will include in future book covers. I had fun designing it and think that it fits my personality as well as the essence of my stories – that author’s persona that leaks throughout the story. I will not include it in Moonlit Valley, since the cover is already set to go – a scene from the book. However, since I am planning to write for the long run, it will become part of my brand. To me, branding is important, as it becomes as essence, with time.
For authors, branding includes many things besides a pen name, but I think that details are important, even when you are a first time author trying to build your brand slowly, which is what I am trying to do now. I have thought about many examples of branding from well-known authors and will use two examples to illustrate my point. When you think of branding, you can visualize Stephen King, (who is the king) and see how he has built his brand around his name. Or, you can think of J.K. Rowling and see how she built her brand around the Harry Potter series. For her, publishing another book outside the series, got her harsh criticism because her brand grew and developed around this character. On the other hand, Mr. King may publish anything he wants, and his name becomes stronger. I am not sure if you follow my point, but what I mean is that branding for authors goes beyond the product. This got me thinking about creating a way in which I can start building an author’s brand as I continue in my writing journey – a lifetime journey.
Here is the design I came up with, and so far, I think that I am happy with it. I like it because it is different and simple enough that it will not compete with other details going on the cover – it can cohabit, but at the same time, starts building visual recognition – over time, that is. I believe that it is never too early to start building your brand.
Design by Maria Antonia Diaz
Have you thought of branding your pen name/author’s name? What do you think, as far as creating name recognition in future publications?
Inkspeare 