I’m so happy that The Renaissance Club’s book trailer captures my novel’s romance and intrigue — elements I worked hard to put into the story. It’s a love story, but also an adventure.
Literary, Upmarket, Book Club, or Commercial fiction — how to determine your unpublished book’s sales category can be an enigma for the uninitiated in publishing industry lingo. Here are ways to determine where your book fits.
Magical realism in women’s fiction — magic and stories about relationships just seem to go together. In my reading adventures, they certainly have, from Susanna Kearsley to Sarah Addison Allen to Alice Hoffman. I find magic really woven into the fabric of our ordinary world, so magical realism — the insertion of fantastical elements into the commonplace — seems to me natural. Is time travel magical realism, fantasy, or science fiction? This is a complicated…
I was thrilled to be part of the first Women’s Fiction Writers Association quarterly Author Happy Hour, sharing secrets of success — and lots of the struggle along the way — with three other wonderful novelists who have recently published books. Click the link above to watch the Youtube! We laughed and talked about the whole process of writing and publishing, the writing life, and our own unique formulas for approaching the creative act.
Can there only be two types of characters in fiction? I’ve read many articles about types of stories, claiming that there are a limited number of stories in existence. I don’t believe it. Not for a second. There are as many stories as there are human beings — and humanity is changing all the time. But when you’re creating a character, a fictional construct perhaps based on a real person, you have to make a…
I’m thrilled to be part of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association first ever quarterly Author Happy Hour. Thursday, March 22, at 7 pm Eastern Time (4 pm PacificDaylight) I was on live video, answering questions and chatting with three other women’s fiction authors! Here’s the event link — now archived on Youtube.
My Author Interview at Fiery Seas is up today! A few tidbits of writing tips, author secrets, and comments on movie stars from the conversation: Which book would you want adapted for the silver screen? The Renaissance Club was made for the big screen. Just think of all those gorgeous places in Italy — Rome, Assisi, Florence, Venice. Not to mention the gorgeous and exciting Bernini (ideally played by the gorgeous and exciting James MacAvoy).
You’ve written a novel that’s been published — traditional, small press, or indie — HOORAY! And you launched. Now you’re watching the sales numbers and offering to do blog tours and readings. What else? How to build buzz for your debut novel? You look at author websites and see pitches for freebies and long lists of books. You see bestseller list mentions, excruciatingly gorgeous blurbs from famous authors, and you might feel a little perplexed…
Promoting your book should be fun and easy — are you crazy? When there are millions of books out there competing for attention, getting your published book to shine in a spotlight that readers can find seems at first like finding a gold ring that’s been thrown into the ocean. If you’re a new author and waiting for your book to launch, or it has just launched and you’re obsessing over not doing enough, you…
The most wonderful thing has happened, the thing I always wanted, and I’m in here under the covers hiding from the book launch day for my first novel, The Renaissance Club. It was published on January 23 by Fiery Seas Publishing, a wonderful new publishing company. Your book launch may not be as scary as mine, but probably it will be. You might find yourself hiding like I am because after all the effort to write…