Month: September 2014

Goodreads Spring-fest

How about we salute our friends in the Southern Hemisphere for a change and call it Spring? Advertising on Goodreads is inexpensive and, frankly, fun. Looking at all those statistics on my ads makes me happy. What, you’re not advertising there? Our Melinda Clayton will show you how to advertise with Goodreads. Meanwhile, how about we stir things up with a Goodreads like-fest?

Today you can share your author page and find new friends. For your profile, grab that URL which should look like this: https://www.goodreads.com/KSBrooks and paste it in the comments below.  (Not sure where to find your fancy URL? See the image below and look for the aqua arrow.) goodreads like buttonNow everyone can “Like” your author page.  The “Like” button is found about 1/3 of the way down the page on the same side as the author photo. Clicking on that will show that you like that author’s page on your Facebook wall. There’s also a Google+ button there, so if you have a Google+ account and you’re feeling generous, go ahead and click on that, too. Still not sure where the “like” button is? Click on this thumbnail to enlarge it and look for the magenta arrow.

[Don’t forget, if you right-click the links, you can choose to have them open in a separate tab so you don’t have to worry about navigating back and forth to pages.]

PLEASE be sure to reciprocate by liking those who like you. This is give and take. If everyone plays by the golden rule, we all benefit.

Pacing…in Writing…Is…Everything

stopwatch Image from clipartpanda.com free imagesPacing in writing is essential. It can make a story or break it. Good pacing can tune a good story into a masterpiece, or bad pacing can reduce it to caterwauls.

Some months back, I read a new book by an author I like. I expected good things. Unfortunately, the pacing of the story left me frustrated and just anxious to get the durn thing over with. The protagonist, an investigator, was frequently approached by a mystery woman who may have had information he needed. The meetings usually consisted of her appearing suddenly, saying she needed to tell him something, then leading him to a small café or down a deserted alley. She spoke cryptically; he asked questions which she danced around, they both became angry and she rushed off. Over and over.

The author may have thought the emotionally-fraught meetings were adding tension to the story, but they added little else. They added no additional information. They did not move the story forward. Their only purpose, that I could see, was to frustrate me and make me less inclined to care if I finished the book or not. Continue reading “Pacing…in Writing…Is…Everything”

Book Brief: Lost and Found

Lost and FoundLost and Found
by Mike Power
Genre: Literary Fiction
Word count: 90,000

When Alan Graves wakes one morning in his Manhattan apartment to a cat stepping on his testicles, he assumes his day can only get better from there. It’s an incorrect assumption. A series of wrenching experiences, from losing his job to getting hit by a bus, throw Alan down the rabbit hole of life where he finds the only thing that can save him is true love.

Continue reading “Book Brief: Lost and Found”

Banned Books Week 2014: Graphic Novels

BBW14_300x250Captain Underpants wins again. In fact, what may seem like a fairly innocuous graphic novel series about a couple of fourth graders defying authority has been the most frequently banned/challenged book for the past two years. According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, here are the top ten most challenged books for 2013: Continue reading “Banned Books Week 2014: Graphic Novels”