So Much Happening! by Paty Jager

 The end of summer, the start of fall. The end of hot weather (hopefully) and the start of cooler temperatures. My mind begins to think of settling in and getting writing projects finished to make the goals I set in December of last year. 

This year, I won't be able to settle in too deeply to the writing. September and November are busy months for me. That will leave October and December to get most of my writing done.

First is an online blog tour to showcase the new covers on all 8 books in the Halsey Series- Halsey Brothers and the Halsey Homecoming. It runs from Sept. 4th - 11th. You can follow along with that here: https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/the-halsey-brothers-series-book-tour-and-giveaway There is a giveaway by going to the various blogs and entering your email. 

Then I'll be at the Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel, OR selling books at the NIWA (Northwest Independent Writers Association) booth from Sept. 14th-17th. I'm in the process of sewing another Bavarian dress so I don't have to wear the same one every day. 

Last year with my puppy, Nia.

I'll be with over three hundred authors who have signed up to take part in Isn’t It Romantic Book Club’s Fall Into a Book Giveaway on Facebook. This fantastic and fast-paced event is your chance to meet authors, play games, and win lots of prizes, including books, gift cards, and swag! Isn't It Romantic Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/isntitromanticbookclub be sure to join the page ahead of time so you don't miss out on all the fun.

That is my busy September! Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it. 

I also start the month off with my annual trek to Sumpter Oregon to sell books at the Sumpter Flea Market. I do this every Labor Day and Memorial weekend with my author friend Mary Vine. This year we have a new venue to sell from. In the past, we've met on Thursday to put up a tent that we used for our booth. With books you have to be careful of rain, wind, and dust. In the past we've been cold, wet, and some weekends miserable. I had a dream for several years of making a book trailer. Hubby and I finished the project before Memorial Day and that was the inaugural event for the trailer. Mary kept saying she felt like a queen sitting in the trailer staying dry when it rained, and we didn't have to keep moving books to keep them dry. Here's a photo of the trailer. 

I used it for a local fair as well this summer and it was fun to pull in, set out books, and start selling. I'm pretty happy with my trailer! 

I hope you all have a wonderful September! 

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 55 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

https://www.patyjager.net 

Editing Your Book, Part 3 Copy Editing

by Madelle Morgan

Copy editing. Copyediting. Copy-editing. 

Which is correct? Answers will differ, depending on the editing style guide used. 

Copy editors go though manuscripts word by word, and their job is not simply to correct spelling and grammar.

After the developmental edit (See Part 1) and the polish (see Part 2), I contract out copy editing to a professional. The first question to ask when requesting a quote is which style guide she or he prefers.

Choose the Style Guide for Your Book

Editors may select from several editing style guides for the English language. The goal of a style guide is to ensure consistency within a manuscript, or across all books published by a particular publisher. A style guide addresses: spelling; grammar; dates; times; italics; capitalization; titles; punctuation including hyphens (three types); formatting (such as this list); numbers (spell it out or use numerals); and much more.

In the United States (abbreviated U.S. or US depending on the style guide), The Chicago Manual of Style is one of the most widely used. Some publishers may adapt a style guide to use for in-house editing of their publications.

The British have several style guide choices. Canadians tend to choose between The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing, or an American style guide, depending on the nationality of the majority of the readership. One important consideration for Canadian authors is that American readers are accustomed to American spelling. Canadian/British spelling may appear to be typos. Examples of Canadian spelling include modelling, honour, and centre instead of the American modeling, honor, and center. 

Then there are the dozens of words with multiple spellings; e.g., fore, for, and four, or your, you're and yore. Spell check software doesn't know which you intended to use. Copy editors are trained to watch for these spelling variations.

A style guide will provide guidance on how to handle foreign words. Should ingénue have an accent? Should it be italicized? Not according my copy editor for Caught on Camera. The style guide she used considers the word ingenue to be one of the many foreign words absorbed into the English language.

To illustrate how complex and seemingly arbitrary these arcane rules can be, a style guide dictated how to address the song and film titles in Caught on Camera's playlist. Here's how the first track was edited:

"Train on a Track," performed by Kelly Rowland, from the film Maid in Manhattan.

The rationale, to paraphrase my copy editor who used The Chicago Manual of Style, is that shorter works, such as song titles, are set in quotation marks. Longer works, such as an album name or book title, are set in italics. Who knew there was a difference? Not me, before the copy edit.

Style guides don't cover everything. A copy editor will present the author with a manuscript marked up with an overwhelming number of proposed changes/edits, including his or her own preferences. It's up to the author to accept or reject each change.

I overroad style rules for some compound words that, to my eye, are more readable when hyphenated; e.g., I retained post-traumatic rather than change to posttraumatic, but agreed with the change to makeup rather than make-up.

Sentence Structure & Errors

Copy editors will normally identify and suggest changes for problematic sentences and dialogue, lack of clarity, paragraph breaks, inconsistencies (e.g., the hero's eye color changes), and structural weaknesses that were not caught in your revisions or by beta readers. Be sure to ask a prospective copy editor what s/he includes in the price quoted.

Do You Need a Copy Editor?

You may believe that your grammar and punctuation is excellent—oops, that should be are excellent—did you catch that? You may figure your readers care about the story, and will not notice the trivial errors a copy editor painstakingly corrects. However, the bottom line is this:

Do you want the quality of your published work—your legacy—to be comparable to that of traditionally-published books?

Professional editing raises the apparent quality of the career-focused indie author's work, as does a professionally-designed cover. Caught on Camera is my September release. As I promote it on various websites, I've been asked by a couple of site owners if the novel was professionally-edited. When I entered it in the Romance Writers of America RITA contest, short contemporary romance category, I was required to supply the editor's name. I'm careful to include my editors' names in my books' acknowledgements.

It appears that professional editing is becoming a quality benchmark for indie-published books, as in:

Good cover? Check.
Four and five star reviews? Check.
High sales rank in an Amazon category? Check.
Professional editing? Check.

Finally, copy editing won't transform a poorly-written story into a great one. However, a copy edit guarantees that oh-so-important reviews will be focused on the story, not jarring typos and grammar mistakes which take a reader out of the story.

Caught on Camera Blog Tour November 21-December 2

On this two-week blog tour there'll be interviews, reviews, guest posts with the inside scoop on the book, playlist and the rest of the series, and Rafflecopter ebook giveaways at each stop. US, Canada and UK residents may enter for a chance to win the grand prize—a Muskoka T-shirt, a movie clapboard, and a print copy of Caught on Camera. 

Subscribe to MadelleMorgan.com or like my Facebook author page where you can join the event to be reminded of each stop on the tour and the daily giveaways. 

Caught on Camera is 99 cents / 99P for the promo period!

Author Bio

Madelle Morgan is the author of Caught on Camera, a New Adult romantic comedy, and Diamond Hunter, a romantic suspense about diamond smuggling inspired by her years as a young engineer in Canada's far north. Retired from a career in the public service, she lives with her husband in Ottawa, Canada's capital, visits beautiful Muskoka every summer, and watches too much TV.

Madelle tweets and posts about Hollywood, filmmaking, the settings for her stories, and of course, writing.

Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Wattpad | MadelleMorgan.com

Control

Hi everyone.
B. A. Binns here, back for a December round with the genre-ista's.

In honor of RTG's focus on self-publishing this month, I thought I would share the highlights of my 2012 journey. Two years ago I would have sworn I would never self-publish. My debut novel had been picked up by a traditional publisher. Pull was published in Nov 2010, won accolades including a National Reader's Choice award, and won spots on School Library Journal's 2011 Top Picks for Youth in Detention and YALSA's 2012 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers lists.  But sales were not what the publisher expected. I never found out their target, only that my book did not meet that target.

Still, by the end of 2011 I was still determined to stick to the traditional publishing route. My publisher was no longer accepting new manuscripts, and preparing to close up shop. My agent could not find anyone interested in my next three manuscripts because of the less than stellar sales of the first one. I began thinking about self-publishing, but still felt it was something for my far-distant future.

Then, early in 2012, by publisher declared Pull out of print, and, after some goading, returned my rights. Yet, people were still asking for the book. I received inquiries from a school who wanted copies for one of their classes, and from a Library Services Wholesaler who said they had orders, could I fullfil them.

So I became a self-publisher. For me, that meant going into things full-throttle. I chose CreateSpace as my printer and as one of my distribution channels. I do not consider them the publisher and purchased my own ISBN's to ensure the company I created, AllTheColorsOfLove, would be listed in Bowker and Books In Print as the publisher of record. When my attempt to purchase rights to the origional cover from the former publisher were ignored, I rolled up my sleeves, purchased a new photo of the same cover model to preserve continuity, and taught myself Photoshop. With a few tries (okay, lots of tries) I created my own new cover. By the end of October, I was up and running. Since then I have sold paperback copies on Amazon, eBook copies at Amazon's Kindle store and on Smashwords, sent copies to that classroom, and fulfilled three orders from the library services wholesaler I signed a contract with.  And it's only December 12.

Then I grabbed a number of short stories I had written, and bundled them together in a new book, Die Trying and other stories, used my new Photoshop skills to create a new cover, and self-published that in mid-November. Die Trying has sold on Amazon and Smashwords. Last, but certainly not least, I have a local bookstore carrying physical copies of both books, just in time for Christmas Shopping.

I couldn't forget marketing, even though I am lousy at it.

• I put together a Facebook page for my publishing company, please LIKE me at Facebook/allthecolorsoflove. There you can find information on a contest giveaway for Die Trying on Goodreads. Three winners of autographed copies will be selected on December 20, so enter soon.
• Being God is now in the hands of a final editor that I hired, and will be available once final changes are done. You've heard the saying, the quality goes in before...  My name will be on that book, it will be the best I can make it.
• I have updated my website with a new page just for teachers, librarians (and any other interested parties) and access to teacher's guides  for Pull, something my old publisher promised, but never delivered on. Both the guide for Pull, and now for Die Trying, can be downloaded for free from the site.  I would love having teachers and librarians and parents give me feedback on the contents.
• I am trying my hand at creating a newsletter. Wish me luck, I truly don't know what to say, but I want it out this month.
• I am arranging a book tour for next spring to publicize these books. So far, that includes judging a teen writing contest in Illinois and providing a workshop for students, presenting at an RWA conference in Luisiana, conducting two workshops on Diversity and Multicultural Books at a conference in Ohio, and speaking on Reluctant Teen Readers at the American Library Association's convention in Chicago. (I'm ehausted just thinking about next year) I'm on the lookout for other locations, stops, and potential blog-hops.

My follow-up books are no longer gathering dust. In addition to the tour I am finalizing the third book, Being God. While I have ARCs printed and going out to reviewers now, the final book will not be available for sale until the end of January, 2013. I really wanted it out this year, but it's still in the hands of an editor I hired to take one last look.  As the old saying goes, the quality has to go in before...

And my name will be on that book.

It's a name I want readers to remember in a good way. Because I have already started book number four, Minority Of One.

My life grows more full every day. And I'm loving it.

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How Should We Celebrate Success....

Romancing the Genre Anniversary – WOOT WOOT!

Wow! One year this month. How exciting, ladies, and such a good job.  The blog is growing from strength to strength. 

 Let’s celebrate! I know. I’ll have a special blog tour…

Tee Hee. It’s only a coincidence that I’m having a two month Grand Blog Tour, but the RTG readers should come along for the ride and join the fun. 

 I’m celebrating my two May releases, INVITATION TO SCANDAL and TO WAGER THE MARQUIS OF WOLVERSTONE this month, by offering a fabulous blog tour and prizes.

Beginning in May Bron will be traveling throughout the blogosphere telling people about her newest book, INVITATION TO SCANDAL. At most places she'll be giving away a copy of INVITATION TO SCANDAL to a random commenter (open to US and international residents).  If you win and read the book, she'd love to hear what you think OR even better leave a review somewhere!

The Book Tour Grand Prize – A $200 Amazon, or B&N Voucher, PLUS… A Book Basket of 30 ‘SIGNED by the AUTHORS’ books…

There are 30 clues that must be collected to be eligible for entry into this contest.  Collect all the clues and spell out a paragraph relating to Bronwen’s 1 May 2012 Regency release – INVITATION TO SCANDAL. 

 Dates: There will be one WORD hidden in each blog post [WHO] in brackets (the word 'WHO' is the first clue). There are 30 words altogether. These words will spell a paragraph related to Bron's 1 May release INVITATION TO SCANDAL.

 The TOUR Dates and PLACES:

Here is the blurb for INVITATION TO SCANDAL

Her secrets are coming undone...
Plagued by scandalous rumors, Rheda Kerrich will stop at nothing to restore her reputation and make an honest living for herself-and she's determined to do it without a husband. But times are hard, and smuggling is a risky though profitable trade. So when a dashing agent for the English government catches her in the act, she desperately resists his charms and conceals her illicit profession. Until she realizes he may be the key to her ultimate freedom-and unbridled passion.

Rufus Knight, Viscount Strathmore, has never had trouble beguiling the ladies of Kent. When his search for "Dark Shadow," a cunningly elusive smuggler, leads him to alluring and headstrong Rhe, her objections to his amorous advances merely incite a tantalizing game of cat and mouse. Soon, they'll find the very secrets driving them apart could ensnare them in a love they can't escape…

Here is the blurb for my eBook, TO WAGER THE MARQUIS OF WOLVERSTONE

They Say Revenge is Sweet…
Marcus Danvers, the Marquis of Wolverstone, is renowned for his cynical demeanor.  It's rumored that long ago, a beautiful woman broke his heart. Now he lives life for pleasure. He’s the consummate, handsome rake. If anyone tries to get too close—let’s just say his bark is as bad as his bite.  That is, until the beautiful, as she is deceitful, Contessa Orsini re-enters his life with a wager he cannot resist.  When he wins, he’ll have Sabine exactly where he wants her—in his bed and at his mercy.

Forced to return to England and avenge her father’s death, Sabine knows the one person who can help her is the only man she has ever loved—Marcus.  The man who hates her with as much passion as he once loved her.  But Marcus doesn’t know that by winning the wager he’ll also be getting his revenge.  For there are some secrets best left buried…

To help celebrate the Romancing the Genre milestone I’m giving away a copy of my eBook, To Dare the Duke of Dangerfield. Don’t forget to follow my INVITATION TO ROMANCE Blog Tour to win other fabulous prizes.

 Let me know: what’s your favorite thing you do to celebrate an achievement or success. Do you – take the day off work, crack open a bottle of champers, eat loads of yummy foods... Come on, tell all!

I’ll tell you mine—I always read a fabulous new romance book without feeling guilty that I should be writing!