Category: Guest Posts

Hastings and Your Print Books

Author Jacqueline Hopkins

Hastings is a chain of brick and mortar book and entertainment  stores. I have found a way to get my paperback books onto the shelves of my local Hastings store.

If you live in an area where there is a Hastings bookstore (scroll down to the bottom of the website and type in a zip code to find a store near you), you are in luck in getting your print book on their bookshelves. By now you are probably asking how this can be done. Well grab your favorite cuppa java (or what have you), sit in your favorite comfy chair in front of your computer and I will tell you.

I walked into my local Hastings store in Lewiston, Idaho, with six of my paperback books and matching bookmarkers, to see if they would sell them. My philosophy has always been that it never hurts to ask—all anyone can say is yes, no, maybe, heck no, you’ve got to be kidding me or @#% no. Continue reading “Hastings and Your Print Books”

Avoiding Self Publishing Calamity

Author Lenore Skomal

by Lenore Skomal

17,500 readers uploaded my Kindle version of Bluff, my debut novel, thanks to the free giveaway promotion KDP Select offers. That was the count halfway through day three of the promotion.

I wish I could have enjoyed that number. But I couldn’t. I was too busy panicking about the fact that so many people had downloaded an unreadable version of my book.

Unreadable you say? How could that be? Especially with the previewer that KDP offers to check your Kindle file after it’s uploaded. I would have said you’re right about that, except now I know different. Uploading a file to Kindle isn’t infallible. Continue reading “Avoiding Self Publishing Calamity”

In Defense of Imperfect Books

by Leesa Freeman
In a conversation with my sister recently, she defended a book that I really didn’t like. While she admitted that this particular book wasn’t great, she kept refuting my arguments that the author had poorly created characters (does she have to be a virgin? Oh, that’s right, because Bella Swan is), no knowledgeable description of the setting (since when is it always sunny in Seattle?), and that people (women) were only getting into it for the sex.

Well maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t, but her point was maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the point is this author had the courage to write a book, get it marketed and published, and turn it into an international phenomenon, despite its (considerable) imperfections and flaws. Continue reading “In Defense of Imperfect Books”

Subconscious of Your Writing Part 2 by Ken La Salle

Author Ken La Salle
Author Ken La Salle

This is the second part of my piece on subconscious writing. In Part One, I discussed outlining versus what some call “pantsing.” (Kat Brooks explained this to me as “writing by the seat of your pants,” which I believe explains it quite well.) But what happens after you’ve begun whatever it is you’re writing? How does subconscious writing play a part then?

I think one of the things that makes subconscious writing so difficult to explain is the whole “subconscious” part of it. So, please bear with me as I try to explain what I mean.

As I wrote my last novel, I had no clear idea what I was trying to say. I had started it with a specific image in mind. But that image must have stirred connections in my mind because I found it so filled with consequence that the image was truly just the starting point. Continue reading “Subconscious of Your Writing Part 2 by Ken La Salle”