OMG! I almost forgot I needed to post. I was watching the Hallmark Channel and recouping from Fourth of July eating.
Before I start with this month’s topic, I want to share something with you that will be revealed in the next few days. If you’re in my facebook group, Tracy’s Reeders, then you’ve seen the revised cover for A Southern Gentleman Vol One. I love it and the test results were very favorable. I’m excited to see how it performs.
The new cover is bold, sexy and tells a different story. I was about to upload the cover and decided to change the blurb. The original blurb just didn’t work. This entire rebranding process is sort of like that stray thread you try to pull, but it unravels and causes more anxiety. I’m patient because I know this is all going to work out.
I pushed the release date back a month because I want to hire a publicist to help with the launch. She needs three weeks of prep and I just finished cleaning up the final draft.
So here’s the cover:
Earlier this year, Skye Warren posted the Romance Author Roadmap on RWA earlier this year. When I finished reading it, I had a plan for the year. In creating the plan, I discovered, I had left a lot of money on the table in the form of boxsets.
I have one boxset, which is compilation of novellas centering around romance at different stages. It never occurred to me to create boxsets within my series. I started doing a little research and found quite a few authors had created boxsets out of some of their series. By that I mean, combining the first two or three books in a series.
When I finished, going through my books, I came up with four boxsets.
Boxsets:
Falling For Her Boss: The Good Girl Part One and Part Two
Loving Her: What MY Friends Need To Know and Love Notes
Real Love : Generational Curse and Intentional Curse
Secret Love: Girlfriends & Secrets and What My Friends Don’t Know
I think this new packaging will appeal to readers not connecting with the original titles. I’m very curious and excited to see how this works. I’m still working on the pricing. I have to be careful not to overcharge and work within the pricing allowed by Amazon.
I’m also not sure if I should release the boxsets all at once or one at a time. I do know initially they will only be in ebook format with print only available on my site, eventually.
Time will tell how these are received.
See you next month.
To celebrate being the Featured Author of the Month, Tari Lynn Jewett is doing a book giveaway!
Lucy Vaughn, aka @LucySchoolmarm, can’t believe her eyes when she wakes on New Year’s morning to find a message from a secret admirer on her favorite social media site, and everyone in town sees it!
Each day he posts a photo giving her a clue as to who he is with a message letting her know he intends to ask her out for Valentine’s and the hashtag #PleaseSayYes. Before she can decide what to do, the posts go viral, and the whole world weighs in on whether she should say yes or no.
Should she take a chance? Will social media bring them true love, or keep them from finding each other? Only chocolate, wine and advice from her girlfriends can help her now.
#ValentinesIsComing #SecretAdmirer #PleaseSayYes
A note from Tari: Welcome to the Charmed Writers 2019 Flash Fiction Anthology! Charmed Writers is a special group of authors who support each other, learn together, share their knowledge and write together. We write in various genres and are at different places in our careers. In these pages, you’ll find stories from USA Today, NY Times and Amazon best-selling authors, from authors well on their way to achieving those goals, and new voices being read for the first time. There are science fiction and fantasy stories, historical flashes, romances and so much more.
We hope you enjoy our stories, find some new favorite authors and that you’ll join us in our Facebook reader group The Charmed Connection.
Happy Reading
Tari Lynn Jewett
For a change to win a signed copy (the paperback version) of #PleaseSayYes all you have to do is leave a comment on this post or one of one of Tari’s posts this month (July 2019). She will be posting on the 1st, 7th, 10th, 14th, 21st and 28th. There are, of course, a few rules:
I’ve been a graphic designer/illustrator/cartoonist for most of my adult life, but as I approached fifty years on this earth, I finally began writing. The first things I wrote made no sense because I had no idea what I was doing. My writing experience had involved writing headlines and snippets of ad copy, as well as a stray brochure here and there.
What I learned from this transition was that different forms of writing are like creating artwork in various media.
Take writing a novel, for instance. I compare that to making an oil painting on canvas. First, a sketch and color study is made of the proposed image. The paint is selected and applied according to the artist’s plan. If alterations, changes, or corrections are needed, oil paints can be very forgiving as they take quite a while to dry.
The artist may want to repaint a section or replace parts that don’t work. While the rest of the painting can remain undisturbed, one can use little paint thinner or turpentine in a cloth, and voila, the area can be repainted, over and over until it is just right. Some parts of the painting may be finished, but others may still be in a rough state. Keep in mind; the oil paints take a long time to dry – days sometimes weeks to be totally dry. A novel is much like that in that the writer has many pages to develop the story and create the story arc or arcs, while other parts of the story can develop separately until it is blended, shade, and glazed, and it all comes together.
A short story or flash fiction I compare to making a watercolor painting. While both appear to be somewhat spontaneous—although they aren’t. Much preliminary planning must take place. First, quality watercolor paper must be selected and what colors will be applied first. Watercolor paints dry very quickly. Certain areas must be given a few minutes to dry, so when transparent layers are added, the whole thing does not become a muddy mess. Once it is on the paper, that’s it! No going back and changing it.
Some stunning watercolor art can be created with proper planning and bravery on the artist’s part. Next time you look at a watercolor painting in a museum, look at how the artist makes the images with as few strokes as possible. In writing, plots need to be simplified, and the number of characters reduced because the story has to do its job with fewer words on fewer pages quickly. The story arc is going to be right up front. Next time you read a short story or flash fiction, look to see how quickly the writer has to make their point.
Each type of writing requires a different mindset. The same goes for painting in various media.
Now, how do these approaches apply to co-writing? Have you ever played the “Fold Doodle” game? Someone takes a sheet of paper and folds it horizontally into narrow sections then draws the head of a person or thing on the top section. They fold that section under and another adds to the drawing on the next section then folds it over and passed it on. This process continues until the paper is used up. It is then unfolded to reveal the drawing by many different hands. Sometimes it is hilarious, other times a disaster.
People have asked us many times how we write together, and the answer is communication and planning. Whether we are writing a novel, a short story, or a blog post, the best thing to do is check in with your co-writer along the way to make sure you are both in the right mindset for the story at hand and the results will be beautiful.
Celeste: I will be returning to the Highlands before the year is out. I left room for characters who had cameos in His Highland Pledge and His Highland Surprise to have their own stories. The new series is tentatively called Highland Ladies and will be a spin off from The Clan Sinclair, following several of the ladies in waiting at Robert the Bruce’s court.
Celeste: As a new author, I was still trying to find my groove. Vikings interest me, and I’ve read numerous Viking romances. After I finished The Clan Sinclair, which was always intended to be five full lengths with a prequel novella, I wanted to try my hand at Vikings. I’ve enjoyed writing this series since some of the social norms are so different for couples; there’s more freedom in many ways to write a steamy story. Much of the historical information included in the books comes from my own running knowledge of European history, which I’ve studied and taught. The smaller details were researched as ideas came to my head, such as, wedding rituals. I couldn’t say exactly how long it took since I fell through the rabbit hole more than once, but the added knowledge is never a waste.
Celeste: I’ve been asked this type of questions before, and the answer is yes. They all come together roughly at the same time, but a scene is usually how it starts. My mind wanders as I’m falling asleep and scenes will form. If my brain returns to the same scene more than once, and the scene grows each time, then I know I have a story I want to tell. It germinates and flowers all at the same time.
Celeste: I like reading and writing alpha males, but each of my male characters is willing to acknowledge his need for an equally strong female partner. I’ve read plenty of arranged marriage stories and even written them, but I wanted this to be a reverse arranged marriage where one family refused to consider it. I thought it would be interesting to have one character not only know, but see, the future relationship while the other had no idea. I wanted to create a female character who was strong enough to live a life with as many uncertainties as there were certainties, and one who could be patient as life progressed. Vikings believed heavily in the power of fate, so knowing that, it made it easy for Leif to fall in love quickly with Sigrid. Readers who might not know that about the Viking culture might wonder how their relationship could develop so quickly, but people do talk about love at first sight. There’s some of that in this story too.
It’s not an easy relationship when one person knows what will happen and the other is in the dark. It’s hard to be the one who must hold secrets while it’s just as hard to be the one who is left out. I wanted Sigrid and Leif to show their commitment to one another despite this sizable challenge. As a seer, Sigrid could only convey the events the gods planned; she could not influence them. Leif shows his commitment to Sigrid through his faith in her gift and his willingness to trust her. They could each have simply accepted their fate and that marriage was their destiny. Instead, they choose to build a solid and loving relationship the way they want and need it.
Celeste: Freya released at the beginning of June, and it was a fun story to write. She’s torn between her self-proclaimed need to prove herself as a shieldmaiden along her need to prove she can be jarl’s wife capable of running a home. She’s insecure in ways no one expects, and her persona of being fierce and untouchable is one she created as a protective wall. She doesn’t let many people get close, and Tyra is her only female friend before she meets Sigrid. She’s prickly and mercurial when she meets Erik because of her insecurities. She isn’t easily convinced that he won’t love her and leave her, so she pushes him away instead. Erik is persistent and is determined to prove he is not just there for the chase. I wanted to include a male character who once again is an alpha but has more insecurities than most alphas would ever admit. He’s in awe of Freya, believing she could have any man she wanted, so when she does finally relent, he is terrified she will decide he’s not enough. It’s the hero’s turn to worry that the heroine will find someone “better.” Forced to travel and work together, they realized they are far more alike than either realized. While they thought it was opposites attract, they discover they are so similar that they complete one another.
I haven’t announced the third book yet, but suffice it to say, there are five friends and only four books. I think most readers have predicted which two will be paired together, but their story has far more history than anyone knows yet. The final character has had a troubled life with loss and more recent betrayal, so when part of the past comes back, our final character isn’t sure whether it’s just familiarity or real love that is at play.
Celeste: This isn’t necessarily strange since plenty of historical authors have to research homeopathic remedies to make cures sound realistic to the Middle Ages, or at least pre-penicillin. I was away with my family this weekend in a little mountain town, and the nature center had an amazing tri-fold with pictures and descriptions of medicinal plants. I was entirely too excited about it. I kept thinking how my author friends will be jealous when I tell them about this since I no longer need Google or massive texts! I have it all on a handy pamphlet.
Celeste: I had every intention of being an international corporate lawyer. I even had that intention when I started law school! Life happens, plans change. I’ve been a teacher for nearly 15 years, and now I’m an author too. Slightly different than what I envisioned at 10.
Tari Lynn Jewett lives in Southern California with her husband of nearly thirty years (also known as Hunky Hubby). They have three amazing sons, a board game designer, a sound engineer and a musician, all who live nearby. For more than fifteen years she wrote freelance for magazines and newspapers, wrote television commercials, radio spots, numerous press releases, and many, MANY PTA newsletters. As much as she loved writing those things, she always wanted to write fiction…and now she is.
She also believes in happily ever afters…because she’s living hers.
https://twitter.com/TariLynnJewett
Tari’s giving away one signed paperback copy of her first romantic comedy, #PleaseSayYes. For a change to win Tari’s book all you have to do is leave a comment on one of her posts this month (July 2019). There are, or course, a few rules:
The Beach Break Coffee Bar was crowded and the girls squeezed through the throng of people to get to the table Evan was holding for them.
“It’s nice to be connected.” Ashley said as she slid into the seat next to Lucy.
Lucy smiled and started to respond just as Ashley smacked her on the arm. “Nooo,” she groaned. “That’s him over there.”
All three of her friends turned to look in the direction she’d pointed. Five good looking guys sat at a table laughing and drinking beer.
“Which one is he?” Mindi asked.
“He’s the jerky one.”
“You’ll have to be a little more descriptive.” Randi said. “I mean, they all look pretty friendly to me.”
“The one in the grey T-shirt. Don’t let that boyish smile fool you. He’s not nice.”
“I don’t know,” Mindi said. “I think he looks very nice. Look at the way that shirt hugs his biceps. Wish he’d turn this way so I could get a better look at his face.”
“What’s his name?” Randi had to raise her voice to be heard over the band who had moved back onto the stage and were warming up their instruments.
“Officer Lopez,” Ashley answered, trying to be heard over the music.
“What?” Randi raised her voice again.
“Officer Lopez!” Ashley said loudly just as the band stopped and the coffee bar buzz dropped to a din.
Officer Lopez and his buddies all turned to see who had shouted his name, and the lead singer of Reflective Lenses who was already standing in front of the mic picked it up.
“Officer Benny Lopez, you’re not even in the band, and cute girls are shouting your name. How’d you do that?”
Laughter rippled through the little coffee bar and Ashley considered crawling under the table.
“It’s okay Ashley,” Lucy said, “Evan just had a new refrigerator delivered. I’ll go get the box. We can smuggle you out of here without anyone seeing you!”
At least Randi tried to hide her smile, but Mindi made no effort to contain her amusement.
A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
She's a headstrong Bostonian. He’s a laid-back Tennessean.
More info →Can a series of wildfires lead to true love under a midnight sun?
More info →A confirmed bachelor with no intentions of settling down...
More info →A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
Copyright ©2017 A Slice of Orange. All Rights Reserved. ~PROUDLY POWERED BY WORDPRESS ~ CREATED BY ISHYOBOY.COM