The Stink-off

Video of my daughter performing her own dog breath contest with her stuffed animals, inspired by mommy's novel Dog Breath.

 

 

 

Check out Dog Breath at:

https://sites.google.com/site/finedogbreath

Query Me, Maybe

Who likes parodies? I do. I made up this one for a writing agent to be sung to the tune of Call Me, Maybe.

Another ms in the trash

Damn straight, hope it turns to ash

Another click, as it burns

And now you’re on my screen

 

I’d trade my soul for that book

Pennies and dimes for a look

I wasn’t expecting this

But now you’ve caught my eye

Your pitch was quirky

Funny plot, talent was showing

Hot hunk, face was glowing

Where is this story going?

 

Hey, I just read it, and this is crazy

But here’s my email, query me maybe

It’s hard to think right, with this baby

But here’s my email, query me maybe

 

(Repeat chorus)

 

You took your time to reply

I took no time eating pie

It finally came with a sigh, but still it’s got to be read

I giggle and chuckle and snort

You’ve I’ve decided to court

I didn’t know I would find it, but it’ll be a best seller

 

(Chorus)

Born to Smell Dog Breath?

First photo for Dog Breath photo contest came into my mailbox today.

 

Is it possible that this was Tom Tidy, AKA Dog Breath, when he was a newborn? Did he know he had that special acute sniffer as a wee babe? I dunno, but it sure is cute.

Photo submitter: Suzanne Chapple
Pictured: Unknown

These pictures for the contest don't have to be originals. Let's just keep them coming!

Scroll down posts for further contest details.
 

Christmas Presents for the Writer in Your Life

Seven presents every writer can appreciate, found at Office Max.

1.       Business Cards

Get 250 full color cards for under $25 in store with downloadable coupon from their website.

 

2.       Printer

Good printers range from $150 to $300. I’d suggest one which doesn’t drain the color ink cartridge when you print in strictly black-and-white. (Not Kodak printers). Also, look for one where the reviews say fast printing. Most writers print their “ms” at the last minute as they are running out the door to their critique circles. No one wants to wait 30 minutes for printing to finish. And you should take note that a wireless printer still needs to be hooked up directly to your computer unless you have WiFi in your home.

My suggestion: The Brother MFC7860DW Compact Laser All-in-One with Wireless Networking and Duplex $200.00, get a $30 discount if you order online

 

 

3.       Computer

I have a Toshiba Netbook. It is light, silvery, and sleek. It fits in my purse and it has wifi. However, if you are looking for something for a little bigger and something that has a CD drive, I suggest this Toshiba Satellite. $300

4.       Planner

Call me old fashion and blame it on the fact that I do not have an iphone.  But I love planners. Planners, that like my computer, can fit in my purse.

 

Love the contemporary design of this Franklin Covey Planner. $32.50 with store coupon.

 

5.       Stapler

$4.00 for a sleek stapler. You have to keep those submissions in order!

 

6.       Adobe Dreamwear Software $300

It’s Downloadable Even!

 

I realize there are free website builders, and yes, I use them. But, it I had the money…this software would be ideal for a writer to create an incredible, professional looking webpage.

 

7. Paper

I like the multi-use copy paper, personally.

 

Worst Dog Breath Contest

 

Jolene Fine, author of the book, Dog Breath, is hosting a promotional photo contest for the funniest picture of a person sniffing their dog’s breath.

 

Email your picture to: Jolenefine@yahoo.com, along with your name, your dog’s name, and the breed of your pet. Entries will be taken until the end of January 2014.

 

There is no fee to enter. All appropriate entries will be posted on the author’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/finedogbreath. Then, between February 1^st through February 14^th, post your vote. The winner of the photo contest will be featured on the author’s blog and receive a free Kindle-edition and audio version of her book, Dog Breath.

 

Dog Breath is expected to be released in kindle format on amazon.com January 31^st, 2014. The audio version is expected to release before April of 2014.

 

Go to author’s blog at: http://jolenefine.blogspot.com for more information.

Money in Dog Breath

Did you know that American consumers pay billions each year on freshening their pet’s breath?

 

Yes, there is big money in dog breath research, something my character Tom Tidy knows from working at Chomp Dog Food for the last fifteen years. He’ll give you a firsthand tour of his quirky job in the soon to be released novel, Dog Breath, by Jolene Fine.

Write What You Know

Fellow novelist, Jeff Bauer, author of Cavern Kings and Wakulla Bones, is a perfect example of a person writing what they know. His years of working as a scuba instructor, specializing in underwater cave diving, led him to the creation of his mystery novels. My favorite thing about his writing is that when his character is swimming through the reefs, it feels so authentic that I feel like I am scuba diving alongside him.

 

One of the things that attracted me to his book, was his cover. He tells us a little about how and why he choose his cover artist. (Same one I went with.)

 

“I chose Elizabeth (of Babski Creative Solutions) for my cover art for several factors:

* I knew her from Outcasts (a diverse and talented group of writers that have a writing critique group is linked to the Tallahassee Writing Association) and have built a level of trust with her. After talking to her and looking at her portfolio, I knew that she’d be able to do the work.

*Her price was competitive with other book cover services, like Create Space.

 

*I much prefer having a person I can physically talk to about the ideas for the cover and, in this case, even show them physical props (the line arrow and line) rather than hoping that an email or phone discussion gets the correct point across.

 

*Being an Outcast, she has read some of my work and therefore has an advantage in being able to help design a cover.

 

*I found out after hiring her that she was very easy to work with and didn't mind tweaking designs to get the results I wanted.

 

*Elizabeth clearly has experience with all of the minutiae of designing covers (the file format, front & back, spine, etc., etc., etc.) that I do not have. For the record, to date the cover art has been the most expensive part of publishing that book (but well worth it).

 

*As far as sales and the cover, it's too early to tell.  I think the cover is much, much, much better than the one I did for my first book (using the free canned templates in CreateSpace) and have gotten much more favorable comments about it.”

 

Thanks Jeff!

 

Well, I’m stirring in my seat and can’t wait to see my first peeks of my cover for the soon to be released southern comedy, Dog Breath by Jolene Fine.

Bankruptcy Leads to More E-Publishers

 The Border’s bankruptcy took a toll on the book industry and affected aspiring authors, like myself. Publishing Houses lost millions that Border’s owed them. Now, these companies possess less equity to invest in new authors. It’s a risk a lot of publishing houses feel they can’t afford. As a result, more and more writers turn to e-publishing.

 

Fellow writing friends plunge ahead optimistically with self-publishing on the web.

Vincent Salazar’s The Aviator Chronicles: Sky-Captain can be found on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GYPG07M/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb for your Kindle for the low price of $2.99.

Synopsis: Vincent, unemployed for months now, finds himself on his first day on the job as an inexperienced bush pilot. Flying out of the local airport of the frontier town of Villavicencio(Colombia), Vincent struggles with what he is up against: a dangerous and unfamiliar environment; flying a derelict, overloaded airplane to destinations deep in the treacherous Jungle—La Selva. But in the end, he must endure—What else is he to do.

In Sky-Captain Vincent tells the story of how he became a professional pilot, learning to fly in New York City while working the graveyard shift as a Patrolman at Rockefeller Center.

Sky-Captain is Vincent Salazar’s first book, and is the story on how and why he ended up as a bush pilot in Colombia. Sky-Captain also serves as an introduction on what is yet to come: his many escapades and experiences as a commercial pilot.

 

Jeff Bauer’s Wakulla Bones, the second book in the Cavern Kings series, can be found on Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/Wakulla-Bones-Cavern-Kings-Bauer-ebook/dp/B00F3O8WDU/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1385728973&sr=1-4&keywords=Jeff+Bauer  for your Kindle for $4.99.

Synopsis: Josh Jensen dreams of becoming a member of the most elite cave diving team in the world. His biggest hurdle is that the head of the team hates his guts and doesn’t believe he has what it takes to dive with the best of the best. Josh discovers amazing underwater finds that should ensure his rightful place in cave diving history but his loyalties, loves and bad luck continually get in his way.

 

Robert Frink’s Second it all Changed, can be found on Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-It-All-Changed/dp/1492771775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385729505&sr=8-1&keywords=Robert+Frink for $2.99 on Kindle and $8.99 in paperback.

Synopsis: Fleeing a bad marriage, Suzy, a young Japanese-American wife thought she was safe as she hide in the sleepy central Florida town of Clear Springs. Then her baby, Akira, is kidnapped. The local, Sheriff’s Office, understaffed and underfunded is making no progress in finding the missing baby. Desperate, Susie teams up with William, a disconnected man trying to put his life back together. With his help, the pieces to the puzzle slowly come into focus. Did her ex-husband, dogged by his tyrannical father take the baby, heir to a powerful crime family, back to Japan? Is the mysterious Zylontronic Processing a front for something far more sinister? It doesn’t take Suzy long to realize her Yakuza connected ex is not the only thing she needs to worry about. Her frantic search reveals racial hatred, heartbreaking exploitation and terrible anger she never imagined. Suzy’s parents had only hinted at the tension between Chinese and Japanese. If they had elaborated, Suzy might understand how Akira became the key to unlocking a decades old grudge, growing out of 1937 Nanking, involving ‘ukiyo-e yokai’, the beast of the floating world. The journey to find her son, takes her places she never believed could exist right around the corner from the sunny tourist havens of Florida. She soon realizes that dogged persistence and her new-found friends are the only hope of finding her baby alive.

 

With all my fellow writing friends forging the way in the e-book market, it seems like it’s about time for me to venture forward, as well.

Choosing a Cover Artist

 




      Choosing a cover artist for your novel is an important and personal endeavor.

      I was looking for someone who:

* listened to my ideas

* knew the tone of my novel

* could interpret someone's thoughts into a visual representation of their novel

Where was I going to find such a person?





That's when I stumbled upon this cover:

 

 

My friend, and fellow author, Jeff Bauer, went with Babski Creative Studios. It was this impressive cover design that sold me. I've already begun decisions with an artist from the company. My humorous novel about a man who works for a dog food factory is set to release at the end of January. I can not wait to see the design Elizabeth Babski creates for me!

 

 

More information on Jeff Bauer can be found at: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6855956.Jeff_Bauer 

 

Acting Out

                My husband watches me put on a clean dress, tan stockings, and brown leather boots. “What are you doing?” he wants to know as I step into the shower and turn on the water. He asks this with an amused laugh.

                “It was easier just to get wet,” I respond.

 

 

                No, I don’t normally take a shower with my clothes on. But, I do act out a lot of my storyline.  Which is what I am doing here.

The explanation: Ten minutes before this picture, I was sitting at my computer, editing the rough draft of Book 2 in The Lambient Series, and attempting to describe how my female protagonist feels completely drenched in a canoe, just rescued from drowning but still waiting for her father to be saved. I know I’ve felt what she’s feeling, probably caught in a rain storm and couldn’t immediately change clothes. But, as I was trying to recall what that felt like…the shower idea jumped into my head. So, I grabbed her costume, or the closest articles in my wardrobe, and a pad and pen.

                You can’t see it in the picture. But, beside my tub (aka, the canoe) is a pad and pen. Which, once someone stopped taking my picture, I scribbled down every emotion, thought, image, etc. my protagonist was feeling.

                I could have wretched my brain for hours to come up with the page of writing I did in five minutes dripping wet in the tub. Because…sometimes, it’s just easier to get wet.