Tuesday Tutorial – Get Exposure with YouTube

Movie Clapper BoardNo, not THAT kind of exposure. Everyone knows if you’re an author with a published book, you’re supposed to have a video trailer. It’s become virtually mandatory. But many Indie Authors can’t afford to pay to have one done, nor do some of us have the knack for doing that kind of thing ourselves. But all is not lost.

If you have a YouTube channel, and if you have videos on that channel, there is still something you can do to help steer people towards your book(s).  It’s extremely simple but most of us don’t do it. (Yes, you can even do it on your book’s video trailer if you’re fortunate enough to have one.) Continue reading “Tuesday Tutorial – Get Exposure with YouTube”

Climbing the Second Novel Summit

I know a few people who have written a novel, and content with checking the task off their bucket lists, never started or completed a second one. To them, the one completed work represented many things. An itch to be scratched, a whim, a challenge, a story that needed to be told. My cousin, a musician, felt compelled to write a novel about his band. It was a pretty good novel, and he loved writing it. But having told it, he moved on.

Frankly, I don’t understand how a writer can stop at just one novel, but I also don’t understand why some people like black licorice or sheep brains or boxing, either. Or why my husband can open a box of Oreos, eat one cookie and put the rest away. The world is a strange and fascinating place. Continue reading “Climbing the Second Novel Summit”

Video Trailer: Keepers of Water by R.G. Porter

A promise to save her brother’s soul unearths a conspiracy she was not prepared for…

Arieana’s brother has been murdered by her own people in a world not their own. Forced into breaking ancient law, she ventures into the human realm in search of her brother’s soul. Once she steps through the Veil, she realizes the renegades are up to more than just punishing a few humans. They want to destroy the race itself.

Forced to forge an unlikely alliance with the very race responsible for the storms tearing her world apart, she finds out more of her past than the elders want. With the war started, each clue they uncover leads them closer to the first of the elemental relics, and a chance to save mankind.

Together they must work side by side to stop the renegades…

Before time runs out for both worlds.

This title is available from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, and in print edition from Createspace.

[subscribe2]

Writing the National Security Thriller: Verisimilitude by James Bruno

Bestselling Author James Bruno
Bestselling Author James Bruno

Two ingredients are essential for writing a successful novel: good writing and knowledge of the subject matter. Just as a murder mystery reads better when the detective work and forensics reflect true life, so is it with national security thrillers. These include spy, political and military thrillers.

Verisimilitude: Separating the Plausible from the B.S.

What separates the outstanding national security thrillers from the rest of the pack is verisimilitude: creating characters, situations and plots that closely resemble the real thing. The worst thrillers are the ones where the author simply fabricates how a spy/political actor/soldier operates. That is not to say that the latter don’t become bestsellers. They often do. The authors of thrillers lacking in verisimilitude succeed by spinning a good yarn for which readers are willing to suspend big-time disbelief. Ian Fleming’s James Bond is a case in point. Wonderful entertainment. Totally divorced from the real world. Continue reading “Writing the National Security Thriller: Verisimilitude by James Bruno”