Day: December 17, 2011

I am writing this under duress. Send help!

JD "Iron Man" Mader

I always wanted to be a gun for hire.  So, when Stephen asked me to join him and my pal K.S. Brooks as a contributing author with the Indies Unlimited team, the decision was easy.  I strapped on my six-shooters.  And by six shooters, I mean pants.

It didn’t require any thought.  Stephen and Kat are good people.  I like to do the thing where my fingers make the words in my brain come out.  I like to have lots of outlets for my work: blogs, stories, music, novels, graffiti – you name it, I’ve done it (except for the graffiti part).

I’ll be throwing up a few posts a week.  Wait, that sounds painful and disgusting.   I’ll be posting a few things a week.  Stephen was kind enough to give me a lot of leeway.  Until I inevitably abuse it.  So, it may be an article like the one I posted recently about writer’s block (here).  It may be a story like ‘She’ that was featured exclusively on IU (here).  It may be a shopping list if I get desperate.  Or a list of people that I need…some of you fine people to, um, pay a visit to. Continue reading “I am writing this under duress. Send help!”

Custom Facebook URLs

Wow.  One of the most common…flubs, for lack of a better word…that I see is a Facebook author page with a discombobulated URL.  I must see at least one or two a day.  “Come check out my page!” they’ll say to me, presenting me with a link that looks like “http://www.facebook.com/pages/Judy-the-author/260458930631195”   Hey, Judy, guess what?  No one’s going to remember how to get to your author page with a link like that.

Don’t feel badly, authors aren’t the only ones who fall into this — lots of folks with “Business” and other kinds of pages do as well.   And guess what?  There is something you can do about it.

Continue reading “Custom Facebook URLs”

L. A. Tripp’s Musings on Making a Video Book Trailer

Author L.A. Tripp

“I’m gonna make a book trailer that’s ten minutes long,” I said, feeling so much pride.

Stephen just cut his eyes sideways and studied me a long minute. At least it seemed like a long minute. Probably only about 10 seconds or so.

“Jack, I know you want to put the entire book into the trailer, but that’s just not a good idea,” Stephen said.

“No, no. There’s no way I could possibly fit the whole book into a ten minute trailer. I mean, I’d have images just flashing before their eyes,” I said, feeling good about my rebuttal.

“Uh, yeah. That’s the idea,” Stephen said.

I pondered Stephen’s insightful answer for just a second. “Do you mean the idea is the ten minutes or the flashing images?” Continue reading “L. A. Tripp’s Musings on Making a Video Book Trailer”

Meet the Author: Patricia Florio

Author Patricia Florio
Author Patricia Florio

Patricia Florio has worn many hats.  This New York City native has been a federal court reporter, newspaper freelancer, and now a travel writer and published author.  But she attributes her desire to write from growing up in a large, Italian family which sat around the dinner table sharing stories.  “I believe I’m a natural storyteller,” Patricia says.  “I write in a conversational way that anyone can read without going to the dictionary every paragraph.”

Her childhood isn’t the only thing that inspires her, though.  “Music moves me.  Different kinds of music from Tony Bennett to Dave Matthews; words of songs push me to the computer to start writing where I left off the day before.”  Music is always a good thing to keep someone company.  She says that her biggest challenge being a writer is all the hours spent in isolation. Staying in touch via social networking is one way she deals with it, and like most of us, she has to be careful to limit her time spent socializing. Continue reading “Meet the Author: Patricia Florio”