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.