Month: February 2013

Jim Musgrave Announces New Title

Author Jim Musgrave is pleased to announce the release of his coming-of-age novel, Freak Story: 1967-1969.

Buddy Hartman, a sober and clean music promoter in Minneapolis, discovers his biological mother is a freak, but he is incomplete.

Buddy’s life is changed forever when he takes his mother and aunt, the Hilton Siamese Twins, to the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention in an attempt to resurrect their entertainment careers and realize his own identity. Buddy learns what being a freak really means, as the power of the State meets the power of the counterculture heroes.

Freak Story: 1967-1969 was released on February 4, 2013 by English Majors, Reviewers and Editors, LLC and is available through Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Sneak Peek: Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch

Today we have a sneak peek from author Ilil Arbel’s historical mystery novel, Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch.

Here she is, the elusive, enigmatic, undefeatable Madame Koska, who can solve a crime and run an establishment of magnificent haute couture with equal success. Who is she? What is her first name? Who was M. Koska and why did he vanish? Would she accept a new chance for romance? Where did she learn her trade? It must be Paris but she has a Russian name… where does she get her lovely mannequins? Does she smoke a cigarette stuck in a long ebony cigarette holder?

Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch is available through Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch… Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch”

Indie News Beat: (Re)Stating the Obvious

Our first stop this edition is at Publishers Weekly, and their report on the highly-trailed “Author (R)evolution Day” earlier this month. That rather pretentious title at once makes me suspicious, and I didn’t have to read far before slamming into a trite platitude. Step forward Kobo’s Mark Lefebvre with this message for struggling, self-published authors: “Don’t wonder how you will get discovered – think about what you are going to do to deserve being discovered.” Yeah, thanks. And the conclusion? That we have to adapt to changing social media, and of course we shouldn’t forget the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations. Really, Holmes, you astound me. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: (Re)Stating the Obvious”

Tutorial: Screen Captures

How did I make this? Stay tuned and you’ll find out!

Screen captures (also known as screen shots) come in handy for many reasons. You can use them to show someone when your computer is doing something funky, preserve book reviews in an image file, capture blog comments for legal reasons, provide instructions to someone, create print-outs of web-based stuff for promotional materials, and many other purposes.

While some things put up on the Internet are “forever,” some things aren’t. So I try to grab an image of any press I get and put that on my website. I include the link at the top so people can see where the story originated, but if that link becomes void it’s now literally preserved forever on my site. Here’s an example of a story run in a Vancouver-area online newspaper. The great thing about that is that you can trim out all the other “briefs” and just focus on yours. This, of course, is just one usage. Continue reading “Tutorial: Screen Captures”