Hope Springs Eternal

Mississippi River cruise

Greetings, Fire Enthusiasts. How is everyone? I am well. As I pen this we have just recently returned from a vacation that a few of you may have heard about. More on that later.

Usually, all I do is complain about the day job, and the length of my work day - the 12 hours days and all of that. However, I can report some very good news. Since I took this supervisor position at my company's Cold Storage Facility, I had really been in an unofficial acting-Manager role. Now, I am pleased to announce that I have been officially promoted to Facility Manager. It's a big thing for me, and they will be making it official this week.What's big is the recognition of the hard work I had already been doing.

For book news, it's taken a bit longer than I'd hoped, but I should have my edits back any day now. I guess that's what I get for writing something that is about 40k words longer than I usually write. The hope is to have the book available in all formats by the middle of May. We'll see. As soon as I get those back and begin the final phase of this production, I will begin sharing the cover more - as well as teasers.

I was interviewed recently by Fiona McVie for her Author Interview site. It's been a while since I have taken part in one of those. It was a bit of fun, and she's a cool new buddy. You can find it here.

The bank of the Mississippi

Breakfast, anyone? 

We just had the opportunity to follow our 17 year old's high school Jazz Choir to New Orleans. Many have asked me how the choir did - and they did fine. They took silver in the festival; however, the performance was secondary to the trip. Originally, there was supposed to be a New York trip, but that fell through on New York's side of things. The choir teacher then began looking for some other trip to take the kids on. I had hoped we wouldn't do anything since my wife and I celebrate twenty-five years of marriage this summer. I wanted to find something just for us in June. However, when the idea to visit New Orleans came up, it proved too tempting to pass up. We called it early celebrating.

Cemetery Tour

In any event, we took in a swamp tour, an old cemetery tour, a ghost tour, cruised down the Mississippi River for lunch and visited the National World War 2 Museum. Perhaps New Orleans might not have been the most appropriate city for the teens to be visiting; however, all in all, I think they had a good time. It might be one of those deals where they look back at some future date and look upon it very fondly. It's not Disneyland. It's a historic and old city, and one might need to be a bit older to fully appreciate where you're standing.

KHS Jazz Choir

Thanks for stopping by.

Rian & a 3-ft gator.

Oh, and it's baseball season. I'm wearing one of my Cubs shirts as I pen this post, and my beloved Cubbies start the season Easter Sunday night by playing against the hated Cardinals. "We" haven't won a World Series since 1908, and haven't played for a championship since World War 2 ended in 1945. But hope springs eternal. Let's Go Cubs! This is the year!

Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment.

We'll talk soon.

At the Bourbon Street Hard Rock Cafe w/ Morrison.

Is It Time to Finally Quit this Crazy Business?

Hello, friends and Fire Enthusiasts. We’re going to get real today – not that I lie, cheat or steal here. I just mean that I thought I would spend this time talking about my reality, and perhaps yours, too.

I’ve sold a few books, but that’s really all. Not too many. The 30 total reviews or so I have received for my three novels have been pretty good. I certainly can’t be anything but pleased with those. Even the one or two bad reviews are helpful in the grant scheme of things. I read those and then quickly moved on, refusing to dwell on the negative.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well, it’s because I wonder who else is struggling in the same waters as me?

For the most part I try and put on a positive display. I don’t lie and make up glorious numbers or pretend to be a best seller when I am clearly not. I do think it’s important to appear to be an “I’ve got it all together” -looking author. I think readers need to know that you’re not quitting tomorrow. On the other hand, I want to be a help to others. If I step out and admit that things are moving at a snail’s pace, perhaps it helps someone else who is on the verge of giving up.

I really think it is more important for me to get someone to back away from the proverbial ledge than it is to continue this front.

Earlier I mentioned something about water. You see, I know I’m not a bad writer. Too many have said wonderful things about my work for that to be true. The trouble is – and I really believe this – there is a sea of books out there. Ultimately, it may prove to be too much competition for many of us. I don’t think it’s only me. Are we telling our stories because we want to get rich? Or are we doing it because we simply have stories to tell and it would be a shame not to?

For my third book, I moved away from horror and penned a paranormal with a strong dose of romance. I was (and am) very excited about it. I once again paid for the professional edit job, and lucked out by getting a wonderful friend, author and artist to design a beautiful cover. I started dropping the teasers well in advance. I built buzz for a cover reveal, followed by the event; I literally did everything right in the promotion of it. I’m sure there was more, but I put all my time, efforts and everything I’d learned into it.

Very little happened. *crickets play*

Perhaps we really do need to withhold judgment until book ten. I don’t know. Seemingly every day we read about someone hitting it big with a first effort. Perhaps it really is not in the cards for me. Or you. Only God knows.

I did not pen this to be a rant. Nor did I hope to eclipse some record amount of comments, hoping to have so many people run to my aid for fear of me finally stepping over that ledge.

Let me just thank you well in advance now. I’m fine, and I appreciate the well-wishes. I’m not quitting. I have too many stories to tell…and I hope those of you who are in that same boat as I have stories to tell as well. It’s a tough business. However, it still is a very exciting time to be alive and find ourselves equipped with the gift of storytelling. For better or worse, I’ve published three novels that a handful of people seem to have enjoyed. You’ve written some things that people have enjoyed, too, right? If nothing else, we need to remember that it really is tough for everyone, and that we are not alone in that boat. Let’s take an evening to hold hands, pass the bottle around, sing some songs and celebrate our gift!

And then let’s get back to work.

Let’s not quit. Regret is a terrible thing. We’ll stop when the fingers no longer work well enough to hit these keyboard keys, or perhaps when they pull the damned plug.

I had hoped to spend the rest of the year promoting/networking. Now it appears I’m shutting that down to simply begin the next project. If you don’t hear from me it’s because I’m in the writers’ cave, using my two hours a day to write instead of network - thanks to my 11 hour day job.

I’ll be back. I promise.

I hope you will be as well.

We’ll talk soon.     

Something for the Paranormal fans

Hello, Paranormal Romance enthusiasts. How’s it going? Can you tell I’m grinning? Trust me. I am.

I am so excited to be reporting this week that things have progressed well on my latest novel. We have a cover, a new title and have already passed the first beta hurdle.

You know, I have never really spent that much time choosing a book title. With Dance on Fire, I recall hating it, and assumed I would find something better by the time I’d finished the book. Well, as many of you know, it took nearly twenty years to complete. By then, the title had already cemented itself into my head and there would be no changing it. Flash Point had itself titled well in the beginning because of the whole fire theme. I had planned to use “Inferno” for the next one, but Dan Brown just grabbed it, so we’ll see what happens. See how important it can be? I finally did get around to checking how many books had the original title I had hoped to use. The result of this caused me to change it. There was much discussion as to what title I could choose, but everything seemed too dark or just plain silly. With a paranormal audience in mind, I think I found just the right balance.

Therefore, my latest novel is entitled: Seeing Ghosts.

The manuscript has been to the first beta reader. With her busy schedule she had it read in four days. She reported that she cried at the end. That’s got to be a good sign. Right? And, no, it wasn’t my mother! She’s actually got next. J My friend the beta did give me some great feedback. I have already taken some of that to heart and made the necessary tweaks. It’s going to be read a couple more times, but then it’s off to my professional editor.

As I mentioned previously, I had been working with Author and cover artist extraordinaire Maria Zannini. We spent the big money and a good bit of time on this, and the result is quite striking. My wife and kids adored it immediately. Bless her heart, Maria also made me a wallpaper of the cover. I have it on my computer at work and the guys can’t stop drooling over the lovely model that graces the cover. I have shared it with another writing buddy. She was very envious and called it a “gorgeous cover.” I think you’ll agree, but I apologize because I’m not ready to reveal it. *teases*

What I am doing right now is building a list of folks who might be interested in hosting a cover reveal. Trust me - you’re going to adore this cover. However, you do not have to agree to do anything until you’ve seen it. So, leave me a note somewhere. You can e-mail at rapture22 (at) hotmail (dot) com, leave a comment here, or drop me a note on any of the social networks – wherever is the easiest to get hold of you. I will then send you the cover and you can choose to be involved or not. I’m easy. At that point, if you just wanted to display it somewhere, you could do that. Perhaps you would schedule it as a post one day, along with the synopsis; or perhaps we could do an interview where we discuss the cover and the book. Whatever. Again, I’m easy. I’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to read/review it…

  

Seeing Ghosts

Paul Herrera finds himself bequeathed a mysterious old house near the California central coast by a deceased aunt he never knew. The woman who shows it to him is the spitting image of his wife, taken from him three years before in a senseless car accident which also took his unborn son. While he deals with the ghosts of a past he cannot let go, there are new ghosts Paul must deal with - alone for the week in the expansive two-story house that he will soon discover holds many secrets. Eventually, he will see that he is surrounded by ghosts as he struggles to hold onto the only thing that he has left in this world - his sanity.

 

I think that’s enough for now, my friends, but oh so much more to come. I hope I’ve whetted your appetite, and you are as excited as I am about this latest project.

We’ll talk soon.

Can You Believe I'm Vlogging Again?

Good Lord! It's never easy, is it? Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. I was lazy this weekend and thought I would just do another vlog. Can you believe it? You know it's really bad if I decided to do this again. Right? *laughs* If you've seen my previous attempts at this, you know how nervous I can get. Would you look at that expression! Everything went great, but this is the shot that You Tube chose to feature. *sigh*

Trust me, my friends. This is the low point of the entire thing. The video actually came out rather well, considering I did it on one take. Anyway, check it out and either beg me to do more or offer to send money if I'll never do another. ;)

We'll talk soon.

News From the Writer's Cave

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How is everyone? Thanks for all of your kind comments concerning my new photo which I revealed last week. That was very nice of all of you. Yeah, that serious-looking photo I had been sporting for two years was a bit much. This one is more me.

Well, if you saw any of my Facebook posts from this past mid-week, you might know what’s coming. For the month of October (hopefully not all of it), I will be stuck in the writer’s cave. Sadly, I won’t be writing, but editing and producing paperbacks.

I completed my second novel (Dance on Fire: Flash Point – book 2 in my vampire series), heard back from the wonderful beta readers, carved it up a bit and then sent it off to a professional editor. I just received it back and am in the process of fixing what needed fixing. I will then format and post on Amazon. This may be as soon as next week sometime.

That sounded odd, didn’t it? My plan is to get it on Amazon and then send out review copies before having a big event/release extravaganza, which should be the week after that. Certainly, if any of you out there would like to get a copy for review purposes, please let me know.

Once that is done, I must turn my attention to the paperback versions of both books. I did have a paperback of Dance on Fire once before; however, it is a second edition now and must be replaced. The reason why I am spending that time doing that is because my series takes place in my real-life hometown and I am still working on tapping that market. I have already begun reaching out to the media outlets, especially those who covered the first book in 2010. I also haven’t done any library events or book signings in a while and am excited to get back in that game.

What does this mean for you, my friends? Well, it means I will not be blogging for a while. I promise you that I will miss that, and will endeavor to get through this period as quickly as I can, so I can get back.

Speaking of which, I’d better get back to my cave.

We’ll talk soon.

Balancing Life with The Writer Stuff

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. I trust you had a fine Easter holiday. My teacher wife and two teenagers were off from school. My oldest actually went on a trip to New York City for a choir performance with his high school jazz choir. We did not travel with the group this time as we did last year for the Wind Ensemble trip to Carnegie Hall. We could have gone, but decided to stay home and worry instead. *laughs* Actually, we have college to begin paying for this year, so that was chiefly the reason.


We did take a few days and travel down to Anaheim, California. No, we didn't go to Disneyland... Yes, I know. There's a special place in Hell for people who get that close to the Magic Kingdom, but don't go in! We only live 3 hours away, so we go quite frequently. This time was for an Angel's baseball game and some really good food and shopping in either the Garden Walk mall or the Downtown Disney section between the parks.

How are all of you doing these days? I battled the blues a bit recently. You know the drill: Why am I killing myself with all of this work, effectively working two jobs? What’s the point? Few are reading my book, so I need to promote it more… However, the more I promote, the less I actually write another…

I’m okay now. We all go through those feelings, don’t we? Having said all of that, I do think I need to re-evaluate once again. I’ve done a much better job with networking of late – many of you no doubt have noticed me lurking about your blogs. I see many more still, but sometimes do not have time to leave comments. I know that I have more followers now and I need to check those out and see if I have yet to follow back, etc. One could easily network all day long, am I right?

The question remains: am I a blogger or a writer? Ultimately, I’m a writer. I know this. You know this. And you know this about yourselves, too.

I was taking my writing to work with me there for a while until it dawned on me that bringing a virus to work on my USB might not be the best idea that I have ever had, so I have since discontinued this risky endeavor. Since that only leaves a few hours after work with which to get writing in, I haven’t been able to do so, instead spending all my free time networking. I considered buying an iPad. I could then take my writing to work with me without penalty (I’m a supervisor at my day job, so I have some down opportunities amongst the 11 hours spent there). On the other hand, aren’t I paying enough for Internet? Good Lord! Between the High Speed at home and the 2 iPhones, we don’t need another bill. In the meantime, I am only writing on Saturday mornings. It is usually a very productive time, but not nearly enough.

What I am trying to do is read through the blog posts that I want to visit from my iPhone while at work, and then quickly commenting en mass when I get home. I hate attempting to comment from my trusty iPhone because it's too frustrating on such a small device. I have only been trying this procedure for a couple of weeks. This week, I hope to begin writing for an hour each day. Hopefully, I will be able to do this, as well as visit a few blogs. If not, I might have to drastically cut down on the amount of blogs I visit throughout the week. I hope it doesn't come to that.

We’ll see what happens. It is all a constant re-evaluation. I have one book released. I have another which is to be released sometime this summer. I'm very pleased with the development on my third novel, but finding that time to write has proven elusive. Beyond that, I can think of two other projects that I would love to begin.

I just don’t have the time...

My sons are getting older, too, and I spend very little time with them. I’m talking about real time, not just saying hello and bumping into them in the hallway or at the dinner table.

Everything just continues to be a constant re-evaluation. I'll continue shaking things up as needed with regard to what I refer to as: The Writer Stuff. What I absolutely refuse to do is let our friendships die because I just disappeared to write more.

It's that dreaded and mythical word: Balance. How are you dealing with it right now? Are you winning that battle or not? I'd love to hear your tricks as well as your steadfast rules or stance on juggling The Writer Stuff.

So, to that end, we’ll talk soon.

Keeping From Drowning

Greetings and salutations, Fire Enthusiasts. Thanks so much for dropping by and hanging out with me for a few minutes. I realize that there is plenty of competition for your time and hardly any of that as it is! And this is precisely what I have come to talk about this week.

You see, I feel bad when I don’t spend enough time with you guys. When I started writing again a few years ago, finished the novel and found my publisher, it was all about me. It was about the first of many novels which would propel me into the consciousness of the world, or at least my little part of it. *laughs* Back then, I had no idea that any of you were here already or about to join me in this crazy pursuit that more often than not consumes us and drives us beyond normal means to get our words out into the world.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that there was a wonderful community of writers and/or readers out there. During that first year, many of you held me up and tirelessly encouraged me to hold the course in spite of newbie roadblocks, obstacles and potholes in the road before me…and us. Now, I feel like one of those tireless encouragers (is that even a word?), and I love that!

My part of the Packaging Department Office. Forgive the tape on the window.

The Problem: You’ll recognize it because it’s probably your problem, too. I have between 4:30 pm and 8:00 pm, and that’s it. During this time it's shuttling kids around, appointments, eating dinner and cleaning the kitchen, and occasional performances at the schools for those kids that I mentioned. It makes it tough to keep up with everything that you guys are up to, though I try.

Working and writing: I have an 11 hour day job (which I have whined about many times) which I have to wake up for at an ungodly hour. I sneak my writing in during coffee breaks and finally on Saturday morning where I have a chunk of time before the house wakes up.

Reading: I pretty much only read before bed. This also helps to tire my eyes and to induce sleep. When I’ve got something really good to read, I take trusty Kindle to work with me and read there. That’s good news for many of you guys because I’ve only been reading indie books for a year and a half. That’s how well written your books are to me. *raises glass in toast* Speaking of reading, my TBR pile is literally a mound of books. I’m getting through them as fast as I can, but…

When I need to get away from the house noise, I retreat to the bedroom.

Networking: Throughout the day I am attached to my trusty iPhone, constantly sorting through e-mail and blog posts that I have delivered to my inbox (As a side note, if you have yet to add this feature to your sites, I highly recommend it. It saves so much time, rather than readers having to go hunting for your posts). I save the ones that I really want to address and delete the rest. It hurts, but there is no time for them all. When I get home I go through what I have saved and visit everyplace that I can.

Promotion: Throughout the day, I might tweet or Facebook post about my book or my one blog post a week, but I really try and keep that to a minimum. I get so much more enjoyment re-tweeting, sharing and "liking" what you guys have going on. Any more promotion than that is really only spam, isn’t it? Eventually, it becomes invisible, skipped or deleted without a second thought. It’s sad, but the reality.

The reason my left knee hurts now. Lol!

The Why: Why did I explain all of that? Really, the answer is because I care, and want you to understand that more often than not, I’m barely treading water. You'll notice that I didn’t mention anything about articles that I write or housework or the treadmill that we just bought to help defeat this rapidly increasing middle of mine. My hope is that by the end of the week, I will have “liked” a post or two of yours, re-tweeted, or shown you some #Writer Wednesday and #Follow Friday love, and said hello to you on your blog or website. Often I read your posts but have little to add, and the last thing that I want to do is simply add some lame comment that takes up more of our time. There’s already very little time in the day as it is. #justsayin’

By the way, if I haven't thrown you some Twitter love, blame the Follow Friday app that I use. I could never forget any of you. *grins*

How do you guys keep from drowning? I'd love to hear your advice and recommendations. We've been holding each other up for a couple of years now, haven't we?

I think my cat has the best idea yet. 

We’ll talk soon.

Help Wanted: A (Sexy) Assistant

Greetings and Salutations, Fire Enthusiasts.

How is everyone? Unless we bump into each other on Facebook or Twitter, I don’t get that opportunity to ask. J So, how are you? I ask because I also want to remind myself that these pages shouldn’t be about the incredible blossoming career of the big-shot writer from the little town in Central California – although that would be totally frigging awesome!!

Okay, enough of that.

Help Wanted: An Assistant:

He or she must be media-savvy and fluent with all devices, gizmos and programs. The job pays very little, but the promise of future earnings is potentially very high. The good news is there is no office to report to and one can work from the convenience of their own laptop and/or device. She? Who am I kidding? The applicant must be male, because working with any attractive female would simply be too distracting and the author must be busy writing at all times. Sorry, my female friends. You are all far too attractive and distracting and, um,…

See, I already forgot what we were talking about.

I know all of you are in the very same boat as me. All we wanted to do was write our stories, right? However, it soon became at least one blog that we needed to maintain, followed by a place to promote (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc.). From there, new friends began to invite you to other places. For me it was Horror groups and Horror Social Media destinations. If you are a reader or simply want to find the readers in order to market your book, then you’ve been to Goodreads, Shelfari or some other reader-friendly sites.

Of course, many, if not all of us, are now trying to figure out how in the world we’re supposed to maintain our writing and reading schedules with so much time now needed to devote to promotion. In fact, I spotted at least two posts this past weekend questioning that very thing.

I’d love to hear from you this week on this subject. How much time do you devote to promotion? What have you realized needs to be your priorities? Where do you draw the line?

Another question beckons: If we spend less time promoting ourselves on social networks, what about promoting our friends and neighbors?

Thankfully, many sites do a pretty good job of automatically pasting your posts on other sites. Many of you are better at this than I am. Unless a site, post or Network automatically prompts me, I may not know how to get it to post for me. That’s why I say that I’m still learning some of this stuff. If we can program and schedule these things more efficiently, then that gives us more time during the week to promote the works of others.

For me, I am in a constant state of re-evaluation. Every few months or so, I see what works and what doesn’t, and I tweak what I do. While I have a break at work, that’s when I manage my #WW and #FF on Twitter, as well as participate in the Novel Publicity Karmic Friday Chain on Facebook. Everything else I do at home. Unfortunately, for Twitter, if I haven’t conversed with someone in a while, the FollowFriday App. doesn’t pick them up anymore. I try and catch some of these folks during the week (when I see there activity) and toss them a random greeting. For blogs, I try and follow by e-mail notification, where possible. This way I leave their note in my Inbox so I can get back to it that week. I used to go down the blog list, but I rarely get time for that. It’s hard enough finding time to visit the blogs during the week as it is!! And blog hops? Those are great, but you are definitely going to spend your week visiting only those participating in the hop. Have you noticed? In order to share the love, I try and take time off between hops.

Before this post becomes book number three, I’m going to walk away; however, I really would like to hear how you good people manage your time on this subject. Perhaps we’ll help each other. By the way, after every sexy applicant was disqualified, here's who I ended up with. I can see he's going to be a lot of help.

We’ll talk soon.

Valentine's Week Update

Happy Valentine's Week, Fire Enthusiasts. How did your day go? Were you able to spend time with the one who means the most to you? I hope so.

My wife and I spent a half day together Sunday afternoon without kids. We went to lunch in town and then headed to Fresno, which is our large neighbor to the north, in order to watch a movie. As much as I wanted to watch The King's Speech once again (It had better win the Oscar or I'm going to be ticked!!), we watched The Company Men. It was good. That's the film about lay-off's that affected both the ordinary worker as well as high-end executives. It starred Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Craig T. Nelson and Kevin Costner. It was very good, but made me feel self-conscious about spending money when we went to Costco later that afternoon. Lol! I suppose that was a good thing. So, I'm writing this post with a tall glass of water, rather than the Crown Royal Whiskey that I might have had had that damn movie not crawled inside my head. ;)

The evening concluded with a thrill. Recently I was featured in my town newspaper, The Kingsburg Recorder. Without any help from me, the much larger newspaper, The Fresno Bee, featured the snippet above. The reporter informed me Monday morning that they no longer reviewed books; however, it was still a treat to open up the Spotlight Section of the Sunday Paper last night to find that I was in there.


Before I go, I would like to point those of you who like scary movies to check out the review that I posted Monday morning over at Something Wicked This Way Comes. It is the blog that is shared among four Vamplit Writers. I say that it is shared, but really I have had very little to do with any of the reviewing there. Mostly it is Marissa Farrar and Nicole Hadaway who do all of the work. Saturday, I finally got around to watching the film, Let Me In. It is a vampire story that breaks the mold. If you like vampires...and I know you do...you should really check it out. I really don't watch horror anymore, but this film is special. After you check that out, think about giving us a follow.

That's about all for now. Have a great week.

We'll talk soon.

Newspaper Article Result Update

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. Happy Mid-week to all of you. What’s everyone up to these days? Are you reading anything good? I wish I was reading something good right now, but I don’t have a lot of time for that at the moment. Are you doing any writing? The edits for my second novel, Dance on Fire: Flashpoint, should be arriving in my e-mail sometime soon. I’m excited to get that started. With any luck it will be a spring release.

I try and post something here each Monday; however, with Sunday’s blog fest, taking up most of my time, I didn't get a chance to do so. I hope you had a chance to participate in that, or at least had some fun following along with what some of the others posted with regard to the Top Ten Horror/Science Fiction quotes of all time. I know I neglected Highlander and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. I love both of those films and am forcing myself to do 100 push-ups as a punishment. Okay, not really. But I assure you that with all of this sitting in front of a laptop, I desperately need it!

Some of you may have read last week that I was excited to be featured in my local newspaper. I was interviewed because of the paperback release of my first novel. Since my book has to do with vampires in my real-life city, I felt that I might have a built-in audience. If you are interested, you may read the article here.

Unfortunately, I find that I get myself too hyped up for these types of things. Picture the old-school business executive pouring over the ticker as the stock market numbers begin to come into his or her office and that would be me. Instead of a ticker, I closely watch my Official Authors Facebook Page, anxiously awaiting my “likes” to go through the roof. It happened last year when I was reviewed by the High School newspaper. I never heard a thing. Later in the year, I was reviewed and interviewed by the magazine that I write articles for, Kings River Life. With 500 hits a week (now 700) over the California Central Valley and beyond, I thought I would see a bump, but it never came. Well, I’m sorry to admit that it has happened once again. This paper is shared with a sister city with a potential audience of 30,000 people, but I gained only 4.

Naturally, the thought occurs to me that perhaps my Horror/Christian crossover vampire novel is a miss. Everyone who has read it has had nothing but positives to say about it. I rarely ask; I usually wait for someone to bring the subject up before inquiring. If it is a well-written and entertaining read, then what is the problem?

It would be very easy for me to throw my hands into the air and quit. Trust me. I’m nearly 42 and work 11 hours a day at my day job; I don’t need the aggravation, or the demand upon what little free time I have! The problem has simply been getting the word out. It is frustrating when you toss overboard a huge net only to pull up a couple of fish. Each reader or follower or fan is important. Never let it be said that I do not appreciate each and every one of you. It’s just hard sometimes.

Many of you may be going through much the same thing. How have you handled the disappointments? Have you thought to quit as well? What keeps you going? Is it the fact that you believe so strongly in the material? I know I do. I know it isn’t Pat Conroy, but I do believe that it is good, so I will press forward, hoping to endure less slings and arrows and more success. Perhaps this is still the tilling of the soil before the planting, or even the watering and awaiting of the season before the plants really begin to take off.

We’ll see. I just received a large box of my books in the mail. I am now plotting further media outlets and preparing to schedule book events.

I’ll be sure and keep you updated on my progress. And please tell me how your progress is going. It will help my morale…

We’ll talk soon.

A Built-In Audience?

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How is everyone? While we're at it, what happened to January? It seems to me that we were just wishing one another a Happy New Year, and suddenly it's February! Any moment now and we'll see that flowers are blooming!!

I was a bit absent last week, and I'm sorry for that. The week started off with a bang as I (and many of you) participated in the music blog-fest that was sponsored by Alex J. Cavanaugh and well attended by well over 100 bloggers. I don't know about you, but I had a wonderful time talking about music and reminiscing about old memories that the tunes conjured up. I also got to meet a whole bunch of new people, which is always fantastic. I'd like to think I made some new friends in that group. I hope so.

Unfortunately, my allergies flared up. I made it through a terribly busy week at work, but feel as if I lost a day somehow. Friday morning, I was sure that it should only have been Thursday. I love my Fridays too much to have thrown it back, however. Just sayin'.

Something potentially earth shaking did take place last Tuesday. I was interviewed by my local paper. The reporter came over to my house and stayed about an hour. The paper is a shared one, including both Kingsburg and our neighbor, Selma. We'll find out this week how well it went.

Being a local author featured in one's paper should generate some interest, right? How about if you wrote a vampire book? With a trending topic like that you'd hope that the interest would be more magnified, right? Now how about if the setting of the novel was Kingsburg? What if the action in the fictional novel took place just before the very real event of the Kingsburg Swedish Festival which I have been going to since I was a kid? How large might that interest potentially get now?

I'm not bragging or anything. I'm only saying that what might take place in the next few weeks could potentially GROW VERY BIG! I don't have any circulation numbers for you, but the combined population of these two cities is about 30,000.

I thank those of you who stopped by a few weeks ago to offer ideas and advice about what I should be doing with my new paperback. I'm doing some and thinking about doing others. We'll see which way the wind blows this coming month. I have reached out to the local Branch of our library, the large retailer in both Kingsburg and Selma, and a magazine in the much larger city of Fresno, California, which is 25 minutes away.

Rest assured that you will be amongst the first to know how the interview worked.

P.S.: You can't discern him, but my oldest son is one of those students pictured beside the headline above who are going to New York City. My wife and I are going as well. It's going to be amazing because I have never been there before. I'll be reporting back about that, too.

Take care of yourselves.

We'll talk soon.

So I've got a Paperback - Now What?

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. I hope you are having a good week.

As you know, my novel was released as a paperback just before the holidays. The e-book version has been available since February 2010. It was positively reviewed by my high school; a local magazine, Traffic; and the Internet magazine for which I work, Kings River Life. It was also positively reviewed on a few blogsites. I have several satisfied customers on the Smashwords.com store, as well as iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Sony. I am grateful for everyone who has given my debut novel about vampires loosed in my home town a chance.

Now that I have the paperback I am beginning to focus my energies toward print media. I have reached out to a major magazine as well as the major newspaper in the Central Valley of California where my family and I live. We’ll see how that goes. Rest assured that you will be amongst the first to know.

I am currently reaching out to local retailers in Kingsburg as well as the local Starbucks to see whether we might be able to do something together. From there I will be attempting to get through to the major book sellers in my area.

I will continue to push the e-book, and for those of you who own e-readers already, you know why. It is the convenience of the thing, wouldn’t you agree? It is what caused CD to push out vinyl, and probably why digital storage devices will push out the CD eventually.

The thing that the paperback has done is to allow so more doors to open to me now. Whether they allow me in the store is quite another thing, however. As I mentioned before, we’ll see.

Mentioning all of this was not to present my feathers to you, but to put all of my cards out upon the table. What do you folks think I should be doing now? Am I going about this the right way or am I barking up the wrong tree? For those of you in similar situations, what have you done that worked well and what not so much? I’m really curious and would like to know your opinions as well as to hear your PR stories. For those of you who will have a novel released in the near future, what sounds right to you and what does not?

I’d really love to know.

We’ll talk soon.