"I Like Men," Guest Post by Chris Redding

It is funny to me to see women writers try to write men, and men writing women in fiction. There is that curiosity, a need to get into the head of the opposite sex. I write from a female POV about half the time and I find that I like it a lot more, and it seems, this is also the case for Chris Redding.

I agree with her, Men need to be Men. I hate TV shows that make men out to be wimps and controlled by their wife or stupid half the time. IMO what woman wants a little man who is stupid? What does that say for their choice? Anyway... I rant on, here is Chris.

I LIKE MEN

First I want to thank Aaron Patterson for having me on his blog today. He invited me after I made a comment here and I thought that was cool.

I like men. I like them to be men.

Not juvenile boys in comedies. Men. In all their flaws and warts and strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, I love the show Top Gear.
There I said it. And I’m not ashamed.
Not the lame American version. Those three guys have no chemistry together.
Nope, I like the original British version.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check out BBC America or Netflix because you can get it on there. I’ll wait.

(Whistling. Checking Facebook and Twitter.)

Done?
Yeah, I know they trash Americans, but I’m not sure some of their criticisms aren’t correct.

I love that Jeremy is bombastic. I like that James is a little flighty and that Richard is earnest. I also like that they all get along and no matter what, even if they don’t agree, they are good-natured about it. Ahem.

Anyway. Why am I making this confession?

Because I write a lot about men. I do a workshop called Show Up Naked: Writing the Male POV. One of the suggestions I make to my workshop attendees is to watch Top Gear. (The British Version.) You will see how men interact when women aren’t around. Well a G version certainly.

And how do I know all this? I work around men. My department probably has 100 employees and I think there are ten women. Just the other day I related to the men a conversation among female friends about stockings versus not when wearing a dress. I posited that women dress for other women when if we dressed for men it would be easier.

Men like to see skin. End of story. All the men agreed.

Back to Top Gear. I love that the hosts are allowed to be men. Criticisms have been leveled at them for not having a female host. I think it would completely change the dynamic. I want them to be men. I want them to drive the cars fast and careen around the track. I want them to play jokes on each other. I want them to disagree and still be friends and the end of the show.

It’s refreshing.
Know what else I want? I want men to be allowed to be men in romance novels. I want them to be strong and weak, but in only the way men are. I want them to goof up and I want them to make up for it and when they decide they want the heroine, I want them to move Heaven and Earth to get her.

In other words, I want them to be real.

Is that too much to ask?


Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog, three rabbits. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in Journalism. When she isn’t writing, she works for her local hospital part time.

On the web:
www.chrisreddingauthor.com
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/chrisreddingauthor
www.twitter.com/chrisredding

Buy links:

Corpse Whisperer
http://tinyurl.com/3qccjpt

The Drinking Game
http://tinyurl.com/3jc953b

Incendiary
http://tinyurl.com/3dh4y8o




Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Her Story: J Carson Black, Guest Post

Aaron, thank you for inviting me to your blog today.

When I decided to write a new thriller, I had several ideas on the table. None of them made the final cut. Then the idea for THE SHOP came out of the blue.

One evening while eating dinner, my husband (and publisher) Glenn and I were watching cable news. John Mark Karr’s plane was coming into Boulder, Colorado, where he would face charges for killing JonBenet Ramsey. He’d been flown over from Europe, dining on shrimp cocktail and entertaining his captors—federal marshals—and generally having a great time of it. Now the press was lined up along the airstrip in Boulder to cover his arrival. Picture the private jet coming in for a landing with all the pomp and circumstance of the Space Shuttle. The reporters, the news vans, the cameras, the microphones, the breathless reporting on the ground and in the studio: an absolute frenzy!

Glenn and I looked at each other. This was a farce worthy of commentary. What we were seeing was the new American way: celebrity conjured out of nothing. It turned out later that John Mark Karr was playing everybody. He didn’t kill JonBenet Ramsey. But he’d fulfilled his purpose—he’d fed the hungry maw of the media for a short time.

Something could be done with this—the distraction of celebrity. That was the seed for my story, THE SHOP.

In the opening scene of THE SHOP, celebrity Brienne Cross is killed in her Aspen chalet, along with the four finalists of her reality show, SOUL MATE, and the producer of the show.

I knew right away who killed them. But why? Even the killer wants to know why. And so he sets out to find the truth.

Sometimes stories come from strange places, and sometimes they come from cable news.

I’ve been writing most of my life, and sold my first book, a ghost story, in 1990. My career went like this: I would sell a book or two for very little money, get kicked off the carousel, and then write something much better, get on again, get thrown off, go back to the woodshed and improve my craft, and sell again. I think the important thing here is the “getting better” part.

I ran into a buzz saw when my agent tried to sell my new thriller, THE SHOP. She absolutely believed in the book and thought it would sell very quickly at the highest level. Two miserable years ensued, ending with a whimper, not a bang. She said, “There’s just no other place I can try.” And so, with her blessing, I put the book up on Kindle at the end of March.

At the beginning of April, THE SHOP spiked. By the end of April I’d sold almost nine thousand copies of THE SHOP alone---and I had other books up as well.
My idea in March had been simple: I wanted a Big Six deal. I would go the Boyd Morrison route and rack up a ton of sales, which would parlay into a six-figure deal with Random House or Penguin. But my thinking changed as I learned how much fun it was to design covers, write cover copy, market a book my way, and, yes, count the money rolling in. It made me feel smart and savvy. And I remembered a road trip two years before, a conversation with my husband all the way from Ruidoso, New Mexico to Lordsburg (that’s a good piece of distance) about our strategy for selling THE SHOP. 1) We needed a powerful, top-flight agent. 2) She had to get the book in front of the best editors at the best houses. And we agreed then: we wanted as much money up front as possible, because we knew that by the second book the publisher would be disillusioned and would kick us to the curb. Not the best model for a career, is it?

And so my attitude changed. I no longer wanted to sell to a Big Six publisher. I did sign with Thomas & Mercer (THE SHOP and two other thrillers), but I kept my Laura Cardinal series and plan to keep one foot firmly planted in the indie camp.
You ask me what I did for marketing. I didn’t buy any ads. I didn’t guest blog a lot. We did Tweet and Facebook the successes as they came, like getting on to the Top 100 list. I spent a lot of time on Kindle Boards Writer’s Café, sharing experiences. I truly believe that Writer’s Café taught me what was possible. When you see so many people reach 1000 sales, 5000 sales, 10,000 sales and more, you begin to think you can do it. Your own Vince Zandri inspired me. He said he was selling 1000 books a day for a week. So I thought: I’ll sell 1000 books a day for one week. And I did. I know it sounds crazy, but just knowing you can do it really helps.

It also has helped tremendously that I have great quotes from John Lescroart, T. Jefferson Parker, Gayle Lynds, and David Morrell.

I think marketing comes down to Joe Konrath’s creed: good books, good product descriptions, good covers. I would add that we emulated the look of Big Six covers, because we wanted to capitalize on the familiarity factor. So we studied the Edgar Award book covers, paying particular attention to fonts. We wanted a unified look for our books, but knew they should stand out from one another so no one would be confused and buy a book twice. Hence the colors and different themes: THE SHOP has a thriller look with menace and a silhouetted protagonist. THE DEVIL’S HOUR is blue, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN is red, and DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is mostly yellow, navy and white. We didn’t consciously come up with these colors—they just happened. But the art, which I always feel is secondary to the font, fits each book. I see the art as behind the font, which is super-imposed over it. I think books need to have a uniform look. If they’re thrillers, they have to look like thrillers. You can be creative, but you have to maintain the brand.
When we were really broke last fall and were coming to the end of the line with publishers, I was within sight of a deal with a real bottom-feeder of a publisher. I figured we’d get $2500, and at that point I was willing to take it.

They turned me down.

Favorite song: Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers.”

http://jcarsonblack.com



Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

BLOGFEST 100! Guest Post by Martin king.

When I think of my childhood I have so many good and funny memories that it is hard to pick just one. If I stick to reading I would say the day I read three books in one sitting and went blond for 24hrs. I had a splitting headache and everything turned white, I freaked out and yes when it went away I went back to reading under the covers with a flashlight.

Here is Martin King:

You may wonder why I am doing this blogfest of 100 mini childhood stories on 100 different websites during the month of August. Well I’m wondering the exact same thing myself... it’s killing me!

So while just releasing my first book, launching my new website, having to decorate my mother-in-laws new apartment and working full time, I’m beginning to wonder is being a writer really worth it?

It reminds me of a childhood memory of what happened one day when we were around ten years old. Myself, Holly, Baker and I think my sister too (yes they do bear an uncanny resemblance to the characters in my book), were out walking in a field near where we lived. It was a hot day and we were all just in shorts and trainers.

Half way up the field we stopped to mess around in some trees, we were always clambering around in trees like little spider monkeys. Holly was up in one tree when he slipped and fell. Now he didn’t drop far and Holly was made of stern stuff so thankfully he didn’t hurt himself badly.

However, I failed to mention he fell into a whole ditch full of nettles. Now just remember back to the start of the story... that’s right he was only wearing a pair of shorts. The poor thing was stung on every inch of his body. Can you imagine the pain? And then watching him get covered all over in calamine lotion was probably no fun for him neither.

Well in some ways, trying to get published feels that painful. To everyone else driving around on that day – it was a hot, beautiful day. But nothing is ever what it seems. Writing a book to everyone else seems amazing.

“Wow, you’ve wrote a book!”

But the hard work and pain, the social networking and marketing... none of that was written on the tin.

But you know what, I watched my mate soon recovered and he still had his mates, his life. After all the hard work of trying to get my books published, no matter what, I’ve still got my friends and my wife and my life. But now they are written down on paper... and that becomes an eternal memory.
These blogs are all about fun and sharing. Thank you for reading a ‘#100blogfest’ blog. Please follow this link to find the next blog in the series:

http://martinkingauthor.com/blog/7094550076





Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Why all the rules? From eBooks to Writing.

I went to New York for Thriller Fest and had an amazing time. As I talked with people and writers, agents and publishers they all seemed amazed that StoneHouse Ink has done so well even though we are only a year and a half old. The funny looks and long talks made me think.

Why is publishing easy for some and to others it is this huge mystery?

I think I figured it out. I am dumb... that is to say, I didn't know much of anything about publishing or writing or eBooks so I made it up as I went. Running a business from the clean mindset of just trying new things, experimenting and not letting the old rules bog me down, made the difference.

Here is the truth of it all. It really does not matter how the Big 6 have done it... does not matter how publishers think it should be done. If I have to print a book and go eBook later I say no lets go eBook first and print when we have sales. They say you can't do it on your own and outsell them. We outsell them all the time and most of our marketing is free.

All the terms, Traditional, Self publishing, Vanity, all mean nothing. It is a book, a product. How can we sell that product? If you look at it in these simple terms you will see that it is not any different then any other business.

Let us move to another subject. Writing.

Ah... yes, you must have a degree, have a background in English or be super smart to write a book. Let me say that in a different way. You have to have these things to get a big deal and sell enough books to make a living.

Character A must have a conflict with Character B and Character C has to Blah, blah blah! Foreshadowing, conflict, rules and all the things that you need to know to tell a story. I agree a lot of that is important but writing is the art of telling a story. imagine sitting around the camp fire and hearing different stories. Some tell it in a way that you feel like you are there and others tell it and it lacks the punch. This is the base of story. everything else can be taught.

But what if you have no training? What if you just like stories and want to give writing a go? What can you do?

A ton!

The great writers in our world are the people who DO. They learn as they go as the best teacher is yourself. Write, write and write some more. But if you never DO you never will DO anything. If you party every weekend, go out and mess around instead of putting in the WORK you will never be anything more.

J.A. Konrath worte the perfect blog post about this. From publishing to writing to all the new ways to get content, it comes down to as Nike says: Just Do It!

Here is what Konrath said:

Are You Writing?
I've got some bad news for you.

Right now, you're reading one of the most relevant, controversial, popular, and opinionated blogs about the world of publishing, and it is an epic fail on your part.

You want my sales. That's a statement, not a question. Or if you're dreaming even bigger, you want John Locke's or Amanda Hocking's sales. You want to make enough money to retire within the next 12 months. And you've dropped by my blog to learn how.

Maybe you've been following me for years. Maybe you just discovered me via a Twitter mention. Maybe you heard about me from a friend who said you should come here. If that's the case, your friend wasn't doing you any favors.

Because this blog is a time suck. There are hundreds of entries to read, and tens of thousands of comments. It's easy to get pulled in and waste hours, days, weeks.

Here's the bottom line: every minute you spend here is a minute you aren't spending on your writing.

You want my sales? I've got 40 different ebook titles currently selling. I'll have five more by the end of the year.

Amanda Hocking? Eleven so far. That Locke guy? Eleven. My writing partner Blake Crouch has more than 20 titles. That's why he's making over $30k a month, and you're not.

You'll notice Amanda doesn't comment here anymore, when she used to with regularity. Blake will pop in every once and a while and leave a comment, but he doesn't stick around.

That's because they're doing what you should be doing.

They're writing.

I'm lucky enough to be a full time writer, and I'm fast enough that I can waste my time here and still churn out more publishable words than most. And while it tickles me to get hundreds of comments to my posts, and though my message is no doubt being heard by many writers who are benefiting from it, the best thing you can do for your career isn't reading A Newbie's Guide to Publishing.

The best thing you can do is write. The more, the better.

How many words have you written today?

There is only one rule is you want to be a publisher or a full time writer.

DO IT.

When everyone else sleeps you stay up to finish that chapter. When all your friends go out you work your business. I do not ask you to do this forever, but for a short time and once you begin to see the pay off you will be the one going out and drinking in the sun on a exotic beach somewhere as your party friends work for their boss and fight traffic so they can afford to party on Saturday night.

Now is the part where you choose your life. What do you want?

Now, go do it and don't let the rules bog you down... Cheers

Airel and Her Humanity

I wanted to touch base with the book I just released called Airel. As we get reviews and comments on Facebook and Twitter I have had one come up a few times that I wanted to address.

On one hand I don't feel the need to explain myself but I like to open up and let you see the other side of writing. The main question, is in the book, Airel comes across as a girl who does not want to get wrapped up in a guy. She even scoffs at girls that make a boy their all, and fall into this crazy love and lose their heads.

After all this, she goes on and does that very thing and gets lost in Michael. One reviewer said this was an error on my part but missed the humanity in all of us. I wanted to make her real, and in a lot of ways she is real to me. And we all do things we say we will never do or have huge flaws in out thinking. Airel is the same way and her lesson is to learn how to live and be happy with just being her.

Now this was not a error, but put in with thought as in real life we are all like this. I know most books have a perfect set of rules and if they say they are spunky they stay spunky all through the book. But to me that makes them un-real. Flat and we all know that is not how we real people are.

So, in closing, most things I do have a good reason, it is for you the reader to find out what I mean or am trying to get across. The reviewer got it right, Airel was one way and did something that was not in her DNA, but guess what? She is not perfect and written to be that way.

Read and enjoy. learn and grow. I hope as you read and watch Airel grow as a person that you will give her some room to make mistakes and learn some things the hard way. I wish she could be perfect but she just is not.

The other thing to keep in mind is some girls are giggly, some are tom-boys, some are super emotional and some never even cry. As you read know that Airel is who she is, and if you are the kind of person that never cries or get excited, you may not connect with her as much. But again, that is all a party of being human. we are all different.

Thank you all so much for reading and keep giving me feedback as I write Michael I am excited to see how she changes and what will happen to her and him in the future.

B&N Must Hate Indie Authors! Or are they just out of touch?

I want to start this off by saying that I have no proof of what I am about to say. I am getting this from other authors, bloggers and... well, I guess that is proof. But the giant B&N have been silent, (Shocker) on the subject. This is yet another example of why I believe that B&N hate Indie authors, or... they have a bunch of out of touch old people working for them. Sorry old people.

The Passive Voice Blog did a story on this last week and others have as well. Here is the deal as I can break it down for my own little brain.

"It looks like Barnes & Noble may be “managing” the Nook bestseller list to make certain worthy (and higher-priced) ebooks do well. Nobody under $3.00 is in the top 125." -The Passive Voice

What does this mean?

Well, this means that because of pressure from the BIG 6 to force the Indie authors out they want more of the top 100 list. So higher priced books will be first on the list and this forces the low priced eBooks down and shoves the books under them even lower in the rankings.

So I ask you, how is this ranking system a real ranking system? I mean is it on sales (unite sold) or not? Why should it matter how much the book sold for? If a mass market paperback sells 100k and the hardback only does 50k, the mass market out sold the hardback. So what! It is books sold, who cares how it sold or for how much.

Next, why? I understand they want the top 100 list to be filled with books by well known bestsellers, but really? Are you that lame that you have to have Dean Koontz and James Patterson on your main page, and push out the other hard working Indie authors?

B&N has a bad rap and has had one for years of being "Too good" for Indie authors. They are hard to sell into the stores and now with eBooks they have a platform and website that seems to be built by someone who has no clue how to sell books. The site is hard to navigate, searching books is difficult, there is no tagging system, no good way to find new authors and link them to other authors to make a connection. In all their website is just like their store. You walk in and only see the NYT bestsellers and everyone else is hidden.

If you think I am being to hard I will let the sales numbers prove what I am saying. Last month I sold about 4,000 eBooks on amazon. guess how many I sold on B&N? Come on... take a swing... 100. Yup, 100. This is not just me, most authors will tell you that in pure sales B&N is way behind, almost not even worth being on their site.

Why is it that they claim to have more eBooks than Amazon and the biggest and best bookstore in the world, but can't sell eBooks and lag so far behind it is almost funny?

Want more? The Color Nook! Strike two! I mean come on, they spend the money and time to join the tablet wars with a sub par device and fight Apple, when they are in a long battle with Amazon. What is that? So why would we want to read a book on a LCD screen? Why not spend that same time and money on R&D into Color eInk? To make a color ink on the same screen as the Kindle and Nook? This is one more example of how out of touch they are.

My thoughts are this: B&N if they don't stop the Hate, have a new website created with tags and help promote Indie authors and come out with a good eReader, they will be the next Blockbuster. Amazon is on the verge of taking over the book world and if they do I will be happy on one side and scared on the other. This is not the time to join the tablet wars, this is the time to step up and take back some of the book market.

Do what you will, think what you like, and I'll do the same. Cheers

What NOT to do when you get a bad review! AKA THE GREEK SEAMAN

You knew this was coming.

First off, I am the king of bad reviews so I feel like I should say something on this huge train-wreck. With what Vincent Zandri is doing with his book The Innocent and how it has went beyond the tipping point, well this same thing works in the other direction. Here is the link to the Review so you can get some background: BigAl's Books and Pals:

And the you-tube: Video

After this show she is racking up bad reviews on Amazon and her Facebook page is being blasted. It looks like she has not been on her page yet and this storm is just getting going. I bring this up as a example of what not to do when you get a bad review.

Face it, not one of us want a bad review. It hurts and it is hard not to take personal. On the other hand, if you ask for one don't get mad when you get one. Just by writing a book and putting it on the market you are open to the good and the bad.

My first book had a ton of problems and is in editing yet again. But I understand what I lack and I am doing everything I can to fix the problems. I get some good reviews and some bad reviews but as long as the person is good about it I figure it is their right.

In this case Al did a great job in handling it and was very nice. He did not provoke her and we could go on and on about it. But let us learn... when we get bad reviews take them to heart. See if they are right and if you need to correct something do it if you can. But the truth of the matter is this: Your biggest fan is wrong and your worst enemy is wrong, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The next thing is understand a bad review may at times be just as good as a good one. A lot of people are scared to trust a book that has all 5 star reviews, they think most of them are friends or family and want to know the good and the bad. There was no comments on this review for a few days and it might have not done anything to hurt her but she kept pushing and once the people took up the fight it was on!

Lesson #3 is never be a jerk. No matter what try to be nice. If someone is going to blast you in a review don't lower yourself and blast back. Take it and use it. I have this blog and a following because of a bad review. My book was called the worst book ever and I was told in a review to never write again. Now I didn't listen, in fact I use it to reach out to others and if you know about what we do here you would agree that in a way she put a fire under me. It is all in how you use it.

The last thing is how things go beyond the tipping point. We have a few authors that have reached this point and once the snowball starts down the hill it will take on a life of its own. This is also going on here, but in a bad way. People are talking, it is being pushed across the internet and there is nothing she can do to stop it. Remember before you feel sorry for her, she did this, she opened her mouth and pushed... It is sad how bad it is getting for her but it is also sad that she did not have enough in herself to take the review and move on like an adult.

Here is the correct response: Thank you for the review, I will look into the formatting errors and have it re-edited. I am so glad you liked the main story and I hope once it has been worked through you can review it again and maybe we can move the 2 stars up to 5.

Problem averted.