Current events!

Video Blog, Take 1

I know, I know. You're all cringing in horror. Blame Chie. More precisely, blame Chie's hubby. He's the one who sent me the webcam.

I wonder if I'm brave enough to keep doing this.

Anyone wanna start a pool?

Post Party Carnage

Yesterday was the party for the release of A SHOT IN THE DARK (mostly because my friends need very little excuse to have a party). And as part of the party, we had a snarky T-shirt contest!

The winning T-shirt was this one:



If you can't quite read it, it says "Haikus are easy, but sometimes don't make much sense. Hippopotamus." It came from Cafepress if you desire one of your very own.

And while we had intended to have an adult division and a child division, we wound up with a distinct and unexpected lack of children at this party, so it turned into a second-place prize instead. Through absolutely NO intervention of my own (Hey,I didn't even vote for them) my beloved kiddo and hubby won a team prize for their zombie-themed shirts:



The crown on the entire party, though, was the cookie cake, which seems to have been vandalized by one red-eyed, rather snarky demon:

My Thoughts on Reviews

Reviews are the one thing that every author both dreads and craves. We want to know that people are enjoying our work, but we also fear that no one's going to like it, that we didn't do our job well.

A lot of authors I know don't read their reviews. For them, it's less stressful, and as many people often say, the reviews aren't really for the author anyway, they're for the other readers. If an author wants constructive criticism, they need to rely on their beta readers, not on reviewers.

However, I read every review I find, and this post is just kind of my way of explaining why.

First off, understand that I'm entirely too neurotic to NOT read a review. If I know it's out there, I have to know what was said. It would drive me insane not to. I read the good ones, I read the bad ones, I read the ones that are just downright puzzling. Because I want to know what people did and didn't like. I want to know if people are following on the journey I tried to take them on. If they're finding places that don't work for them, that means I didn't accomplish all that I wanted to.

Second, I read reviews because every person that writes one has taken the time to stop and read my books. Even as speedy as I read, that's a minimum of three hours of their day, and for most people it's a lot more time than that.

Then, on top of that time spent, they took the time to stop and think about what I wrote. And this goes beyond just "did I like it, or didn't I?" They have to think about why they liked it, or didn't. What elements appealed to them? What places dragged on? Which characters had them cheering, which ones fell flat?

If you've never tried to write a book review, the reading that you do to form one is totally different than reading just for pleasure. It's work! It's hard to pin down the minute details of a story, hard to see the trees for the forest. You have to think about a book like a puzzle, and decide what pieces were missing, which ones locked together tightly, and which ones were just a little warped.

I figure, if someone has gone to all that work, then the least I can do is read what they've written. I mean, they took the time to read 80,000 words of mine, to analyze it, to put into words their thoughts on it. I owe them the time it takes to read 500 words of theirs. Doesn't matter if it's a glowing review, or the worst one I've ever gotten. A reviewer's time and effort should be respected.

I don't comment on reviews, typically. Like I said, they're not written for me. They're written so that other readers have a chance to say "Hey, I might like that" or "nah, I'll pass." In this tight economy, I can appreciate having a system in place to help people decide where to pass on their money.

And really, arguing with someone over their opinion is a bit ridiculous. That's like arguing with someone who says they like salty better than sweet. There's no logical basis for an argument like that.

So I don't comment, but I do read, because I think I owe a reviewer that much respect. There we are. My feelings on reviews in a nutshell.

Release the Kraken!

Or: How a Promo Post Gets Sappy

So, here we are, release week. I had grand plans to do a big post on the actual release day, but between the Real Job(tm) and...well...life, it just didn't happen.

A lot of people have asked me how this release day differed from the first one. Well, more people congratulated me, for one thing. People I've never met, Twitter-folk I only know because they read Devil and loved it. So there was that.

I like to think I was a lot less obsessive about my Amazon rankings this time. Mostly because I've truly proven over the last year that they don't mean a whole lot. Do I like to see those low digits? Sure. I always do a little happy dance in my chair when I can tell that someone bought another one. But it's still just pixels, ghosts in the machine.

A lot of other people had great releases on the same day. Carolyn Crane summed it up pretty nicely over at The League, so I'll just say go check her post out, and just use it like a shopping list. I myself bought HOUNDED and HEXED by Kevin Hearne today (they were out of HAMMERED, the big goobers, so I had to reserve one from the next batch). I also bought MY LIFE AS A WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE, then sat down and devoured it in three hours. (devoured...zombie... get it? Never mind.) Even I, the confessed zombie-phobe, loved it.

For those who just can't get enough of me... (oh come, on that's all of you. There's what, four of you now?)

Over at The Other Side of the Story, I talk about writing description. And at Dark Faerie Tales, Axel gives his view of Kansas City, plus you can win my books! Definitely keep checking back at Dark Faerie Tales and at All Things Urban Fantasy for their Deadly Destinations event all through the month of July. Your favorite UF characters give you tours of their worlds and there are giveaways galore.

I'll be popping up in a few more places around the Interwebz, but I'll link those as they come.

There have also been some great reviews for A SHOT IN THE DARK, but I won't link them all here. (though a part of me wants to go buy each and every one of those reviewers a steak dinner) ((Seriously. I know good steak.))

I just want to thank everyone who went out and bought the books, who read them, who recommended them... I always say that I would have kept writing, even if I'd never been published, but when it comes right down to it, having people read what I write is the true reward. This would be a very lonely endeavor without all of YOU.

Yes, you. You there. No, not you. You. Yes.

Ahem. Anyway.

Still getting trailing feedback in from my betas on Book 3 (which is in DIRE need of a title, so if anyone thinks of one...) but I think I'm pretty settled on what changes I need/want to make. Mostly, my betas are confirming the weaknesses I already saw, bless them, and I think the end project will be a zillion times better. It always is, when my betas get involved.

So, a bit more work, and then I'll have officially completed this contract. People keep asking me, "Will there be more than three JJD novels?" Short answer: Gosh, I hope so. Long answer: Haven't talked to anyone about that yet. Hope so. Really really hope so. Y'all will be the...well, probably fourth or fifth to know, but you know what I mean.

What is a Beta?

((Cross-posted at The League))

Since I announced that I’d finished Book 3 a few weeks ago and turned it over to my betas, I’ve had several questions that I thought deserved bigger answers than Twitter or Facebook would allow. So here we go.

No, a beta reader is not an overly aggressive fish with a love of literature.



Nor is it a person who divines the future by reading the entrails of said overly aggressive fish. (though a part of me now wants to put such a person in a book of some kind)



And please realize that if you ask a dozen different writers what a beta reader is, you’re likely to get a dozen different answers. (And if you ask the Leaguers, not all of those answers will be safe for work.) So what follows is really just a small example of what my betas do for me.

First, I have what I call my Alpha-Betas. This is a grand total of two people who read every word almost as soon as I set it on the paper (computer). Their purpose is to help me during the writing process. They work me past sticky plot problems, murky character developments, and guide me when I take a completely wrong turn. One of them is a high school English teacher, and the other has a Masters of Information degree (I think here in the States, it would be a Master of Library Sciences, but his way sounds cooler) and has read more classical literature then I even knew existed. They bring a wealth of knowledge and writing skill to the table. They’re the ones who get to put up with me whining “It’s not working and I just don’t know whhhhhhhyyyyyy!”

Once I have the first draft completed, I then send the book off to my regular betas. They come from a zillion different backgrounds. They are a web designer, an IT consultant, a bouncer, a factory worker, a theology student, a doctor and half a dozen other authors in various genres. But they all have one thing in common. They are readers. Like me, they read anything they can get their hands on.

When I send them the book, I give them instructions. Usually saying things like “Chapter 16 sucks, but I don’t know why.” Or “I’m worried that the first three chapters are too slow.” And very often “Did you follow event XYZ okay? I’m not sure I was even making sense at that point.”

They read for flow, for pacing. They read for continuity. They read to find me the places where I just didn’t explain myself as well as I think I did. They read to locate the points where my characters just aren’t acting like themselves. They tell me what parts they want to know more about, and what parts just stuck out because they didn’t belong.

It’s not fun, beta reading. It’s actually hard work. The easy part would be to read the book like a book, getting lost in the story. It’s much more difficult to read and deliberately hold yourself out of it, searching for the chinks and flaws between the words. But they do it for me every time. In fact, this crop of beta readers has been with me through four books now. Some of them have even read pieces of more books than that. I ask them to read for me over and over again because I know that they take it seriously, and because I know what kind of feedback I will get from them. The things they tell me are important. Even if I don’t agree with it all, it always makes me think and that’s the key part. If one person finds something wrong, others will also find that same part, and I need to decide how to address that.

Often, I get people asking “Can I be your beta reader?” Most of these people ask because they’re super excited about my writing, and they just can’t wait to see what comes next! They want to help! And that’s awesome. It makes me feel good that there are people who are so in touch with my characters that they’d volunteer to work on a book instead of just enjoy it.

Most of the time, though, I turn them down. It’s not because I don’t like them, or because I don’t think they could do the job. But really, the crew I have is enough feedback for me at the moment. I get a variety of opinions and notes, ranging from plot progression to grammar and syntax, and they’ve never failed to point me in the right direction.

Occasionally, one of my betas drops out due to time constraints. (Contrary to my own belief, they have lives/jobs/writing deadlines of their own, and they can’t always drop everything to read through my drivel) In those cases, I will sometimes reach out and try to find a new reader. If that reader provides helpful feedback, then I’ll usually keep them on for the next one. But more often than not, I choose a new reader and then I never hear back from them. Sad, but true. Those are the ones who just want to read a book before it comes out, but they don’t want to do the work to help make it the best it could be.

So for those who would love to be a beta reader (not just for me, but for anyone), remember that it’s work, and that the writer is relying on you. Simply telling them “It’s great, I loved it!” – while wonderful for the ego – is actually not as helpful as one might think. We need to know the parts that aren’t great, and when a person is a super-fan, they have a hard time pointing those places out. (Which is why I don’t beta read for a certain author-friend of mine. Flat out told her, I’m too big a fan to be useful to you.)

Hope this clears up some of the questions people have about beta readers. (If it doesn’t, I obviously should have run it past my betas first.)

Booooook Fooooooort!!!!

Got my author copies today, and you know what that means!

Book Fort!





Well, okay, this one is vaguely castle-like, but I think my architectural skills have improved since last year, don't you?



And now to catch up with folk.

I finished the first draft of the still-untitled Book 3 a couple of weekends ago, and now it is in the hands of my overworked but much-appreciated betas. And since I've been getting this question a lot, I'm planning a blog post soon on just what a beta is and does.

In the meantime, since I can't revise book 3 until they get back to me no matter how badly I want to, I have pulled Muse out of the pile and I'm going to start rewriting it based on the feedback The Agent gave me oh so many moons ago. I'm still excited about this one, and I think the rewrite is just going to make it that much more awesome.

We're 18 days away from A SHOT IN THE DARK's official release date, and around that time I'll be doing guest blogs at a variety of places. (Provided I sit my butt down tomorrow and write them!) I'll keep you posted on where and when to find me around the interwebz!

And last but never ever least, I want to introduce you to a new blog started by my very own Alpha-Beta, Chie. Visit her over at the Geek Pantry, and learn why it's a good thing she lives several states away from me (or I'd weigh about 800 pounds). She's a phenomenal cook, and has even managed to teach hopeless me a few things that won't poison my family. Go! Learn! Cook! Eat!