Independent Author Adventures

Overload Flux Wins a 2015 SFR Galaxy Award

Just a short post to announce that Overload Flux (A Central Galactic Concordance Novel) has won a 2015 SFR Galaxy Award  for “Best Difficult Courtship: How two very different people make it work.” Overload Flux shares the spotlight with some great books, so I’m honored to be in such illustrious company. If you love science fiction romance, […]

Fiction Categories and Keywords

Thoughts About Fiction Categories and Keywords We humans love patterns – they’re a time saver, so we don’t have to make the same decision each time we come across something new.  “Look at that big tawny cat,” thought a dimwitted ancestor, “I saw one pounce on and eat a gazelle last month. I’m not a […]

Writing Book Blurbs

  Fiction book blurbs—more properly described as “book descriptions”—are hard to write. Whether they’re on the back of the paperback or the first part of the ebook listing, they’re the first taste of what’s in the book, and they will make or break the sale. They have to confirm the genre (the cover should be […]

Suggestions for Author Websites

Speaking as a reader, I’d like to make some gentle suggestions for author websites.   Have an Author Website First things first: please have a website. I’m astonished when I run into living, still-active authors who don’t have at least a simple page or blog site, but it happens. Bonus if the website is easy […]

Overload Flux Released!

Overload Flux (A Central Galactic Concordance Novel) is available today at an e-tailer near you: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and (soon) iTunes. It’s a science fiction-action-romance novel with mystery, adventure, corrupt pharma companies, fights, space battles, and strong characters to root for. It’s also the start of a new series.   By the way, pretending […]

On Cover Design for Fiction Novels, Part 1

This is a two-part post written primarily for other independent authors on cover design for fiction novels, with personal opinions and experience galore. There’s a lot to cover (heh!), so let’s dive right in. Great Cover Design Sells Books Fiction covers, experts will tell you, will make or break a sale before the reader even […]

Three Writing Tools I Can't Do Without

A friend and fellow traveler as an independent author asked what three writing tools I couldn’t do without, so here’s my list. I’ll focus on tools for fiction writing for now, because the list varies when we’re talking about writing plays, screenplays, or technical documents.   For capturing and sketching out ideas, I start with […]