Writing Update - February 2016

February was a busy month. I got The Strength of a Heart to the final draft and went through the first round of edits sent by my editor. The book is already available to pre-order on Amazon with a release date set to March 15.

I finally wrote the second story in The Devil You Know series. It will be released at the same date with The Strength of a Heart, on March 15.

I also wrote a commissioned short story for a Romanian magazine. It will be published in the upcoming issue, I think. More details then.

If you missed the story published in Argos magazine, it's here.

And last but not least, I translated The Impaler's Revenge into Romanian. It still needs a bit of polishing, but most of the work is done. The plan is to have all three novellas translated before the summer vacation, and then I'll start looking for a publisher.

In March, I'll start working on a new sci fi novel, The Chasm. Most of the plot is done so I don't expect any problems on the way. And maybe I'll write a short story for a Romanian anthology, too. Not sure, we'll see. 

Until then, watch this space next week for two cover reveals and a big announcement. :)

Writing Update - January 2016

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know the good news. The first draft of The Strength of a Heart, the second book in The Stolen Wings series, is done. I just finished it last night. I know, go, me! :)

The first 15k words were written in January 2012, right after I finished the first draft of The Weight of a Wing, the first book in the series. Then I went back to polish the TWOW draft until I got sick of it and moved to something else. The next 10k were written last summer after TWOW was published and readers began asking for more. But the real writing was done between October and January, and it would have been finished sooner if I hadn't taken a two-week break for Christmas, but that's all right.

I had one big problem with this story. I kept feeling I was missing a piece of the action, like I should have squeezed in one more adventure as I feared I wouldn't make the word count I had in mind. It's the main reason I kept putting off writing it this long. As I started working on it, however, all pieces lined up nicely together, and it turned out I wasn't missing anything. The initial goal was to get it to 75k, but I would have been secretly happy with 70k. I've got 74k, and that's only the first draft. At least 2k will be added during rewrites if not more, plenty enough for my editor to cut from as she usually does, and rightfully so. 

The next step is to get it to the final draft, which I plan to do in February. Depending on how quickly my editor can get it done, the release will take place either in March or April. In February, I also need to write three short stories before I start working on another novel in March, so it will be a busy month. Plenty of time for you to read The Weight of a Wing if you haven't yet. It's my best-selling title, so it must be good. :) Fair warning, it's getting more romantic than initially planned. Ha! Until then, check back on Monday for a cover reveal. I've been sitting on it since TWOW came out, and I can't wait to share it with you. :D

One more thing, I've been also working on putting together a manuscript for a new Romanian short story collection. I only have to finalize the table of contents and then it's off to my publisher. So I guess all of my readers will have something new to read this spring.

2015 Recap

Looking back, 2015 might not have been the best year, but it was a pretty good one.

Writing:

- in Romanian

5 short (longish) stories

I also translated the entire The Nightingale Circus short story collection.

- in English

4 short stories (3 of them translated from Romanian)

2 novels, one of which will be finished soon.

Publishing:

- in Romanian

2 short stories (reprints) included in Romanian anthologies:

·   "Dincolo de orizont. Povestiri science fiction, vol.1",
editor Michael Haulică, Millennium, November, 2015

·  "Argos Doi. Proză Science-Fiction & Fantasy",
editor Michael Haulică, MediaTech & TexaRom, May, 2015

I submitted 4 short stories to Romanian anthologies, 3 short stories to printed magazines (one of the magazines got canceled before receiving an answer), 1 short story to an online magazine. None of them are out yet, but they will be hopefully soon.

I also submitted the Romanian version of The Nightingale Circus to a publisher. I haven’t heard back from them yet. Shrug.

And I’m working on putting together a new short story collection with all the stories included in anthologies so far.

- in English

2 novels, 1 short story, and 3 other short stories/novellas in a series:

Bonds of Steel (Law and Crucible Saga #3), December, 2015
Point of Origin (Law and Crucible Saga #2), December, 2015
No Port to Land (Law and Crucible Saga #1), December, 2015
Broken Hearts (Broken People #2), September, 2015 
Breaking the Chains (The Devil You Know #1), June, 2015
The Weight of a Wing (The Stolen Wings #1), April, 2015

I have submitted 3 stories to magazines, and one of them has been already accepted.

Europa SF anthology is still in the works, but the project has advanced so it looks promising.

Sales:

There was one time when I thought I really made my breakthrough when The Weight of the Wing was selling like crazy in June and July, but then the sales dropped back to normal in August so I guess I’m not there yet. It’s a little frustrating because the feedback is good. They’re just not selling as well as they could.

Reading:

According to Goodreads, I read 103 books this year. Only 7 were in Romanian, and the rest were read on Kindle. I’m still longing to get a new one, but so far no luck. Best reads were Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkossigan saga, V. E. Schwab’s Vicious, and Genevieve Valentine’s The Girls at the Kingfisher Club.

You can check my year in books here.

Formatting:

After the health issues in the spring, I cut back on work and formatting got the burn of it, but feeling less stressed is more important than money.

Cats:

We still have three cats left after our neighbor’s dog killed Foxy over the summer. :(( Mamma cat is acting weird as usual, now that it got cold she's staying at home, but all summer was out and pretended she didn’t know us. Monsy put on weight because he’s missing little brother who is away. And Moti, our visually impaired cat who no one thought would live this long, is doing just fine.

Vacation:

We spent a nice week in Vienna. Unfortunately, it was the only cold week the entire summer.

Health:

One week spent with IVs in the spring, but less colds than usual, and less reflux episodes in the fall, yay. The insomnia is starting to become a problem, though.

So 2015 wasn’t bad. What I want for next year, aside from the usual health, happiness, joy and luck for me and my own, is a 10-day vacation somewhere hot with no stairs, and 4 book launches. It’s not a lot to ask, is it? I’ll keep you updated with the progress. See you next year!

Self-Publishing in 2015

I started my 2014 post saying it was my third year, but 2012 doesn’t really count because it was only half and I had no idea what I was doing. So let’s say 2015 was actually my third full year in the business. I had 4 book releases this year. Each went somewhat differently so we’ll discuss them separately to see what I learned.

First, there was The Weight of a Wing, the first book in a new urban fantasy series, The Stolen Wings, released in April. I had a virtual book tour shortly after the release. I’m still on the fence on the matter of how much these tours help or are worth the effort. I guess it depends on whether you find the right audience, and it’s often hard to tell if you did. Anyway, the sales slowly peaked up. The book is also included in the Kindle Unlimited program, and the borrows really took off in June and July. Those were my best months so far. 

It’s funny because I had this book for about four years and the time never felt right to publish it. Then I tossed out into the world just to have a new release that spring, and technically, it became my best selling title. The KU borrows dropped to close to nothing in the fall, so I’m not impressed with KU at the moment, but I’ll keep this series enrolled until the whole trilogy is out. This was my second book that also had a printed edition, and when I did that, I released printed editions for all my other available titles as well.

The second release was Breaking the Chains, the first short story in The Devil You Know paranormal series. This story was initially written in English and published on my blog then the Romanian version was included in my debut short story collection “Efectul de nautil” in 2013. So it was sort of ‘tested’ before being published in English. I can’t say it did well, but I wasn’t expecting that. People tend to find $0.99 short stories too expensive. The plan was to write the second story in the series this year, if not also publish it, but I didn’t have time to do it. I could have, there’s always dead time while writing, but I lacked the enticement mostly because these are only prequels and only the third book in the series, a longer novella, will be the real story.

Third came Broken Hearts, the second novel in the Broken People series, in September. This story is close to my heart as it happens to be my favorite series. Just because the first book was enrolled in KU, I also enrolled Broken Hearts for the first three months. A big waste of time for both books, I won’t make the same mistake with the third. I did, however, run the Kindle Countdown Deals for it, and since I also had the other two titles in the series discounted to $0.99, I did make a few full series sales during that time. I can’t wait for the third novel to be released, but I have to write it first. Until then, there will be a connecting story out. More on this another time. For now, I’m serializing Broken People on Wattpad, and you can get The Nightingale Circus for free from NoiseTrade.

The fourth release was Law and Crucible Saga, all first three installments in the space opera series, No Port to Land, Point of Origin, and Bonds of Steel. I’ve been waiting for a long time to start writing it, and it finally happened. There will be more stories in this series coming next year. I’m having so much fun writing them. They’ve barely been released last week so it’s too soon to tell, but for now they’re selling and there’s also some activity on KU, which is nice to see for a change.

This is all as far as new releases go. Next stop, marketing. I used paid advertising with The Fussy Librarian twice. Once was for The Nightingale Circus, and while it did bring more sales than usual, it didn’t cover the expenses. The other time, Amazon was late with dropping the price for The Weight of a Wing so it was a bust. Bottom of line, I don’t feel like I’m ready to invest in paid advertising at this point.

Which leaves us with free advertising, including several options:

- Thunderclap and Headtalker campaigns – good for spreading the word about new releases and other big events; the trick is to start them several weeks in advance to gather the necessary number of supporters.

- same goes for Goodreads events; not so sure about Facebook events as I never had much luck with them, but I guess you need to be more active on FB to make them work.

- ebook giveaways on BookLikes and Librarything – in hope some of the winners will review the books.

- printed copy giveaways on Goodreads, which also allows people to add the books to their to read shelf – I used it for my Romanian books and it worked fine; I can’t really use it for English books because the shipping costs too much.

- Twitter – you’ll get retweets, sometimes a lot, but I still have to see proof that they lead to sales.

- Facebook book groups – good for free books, big discounts, and possibly Kindle Unlimited books, but not so useful for full price books; FB has changed the rules for posting in groups so if you post the same ad in several groups at once you risk getting banned from posting for a while; it needs to be done with great care, but it’s doable.

- excerpts posted on popular sited like Wattpad and Readwave – my Readwave account has reached over 90,000 views with the site being down way too often; no idea how that happened.

- Animoto for book trailers – the theme selection is limited, but maybe you can find one that fits your book; still not a big fan of book trailers.

- pre-orders on Amazon, Smashwords, etc. – the only advantage I see is getting the links to the books early; if you don’t have a big following, people will think twice before buying something they don’t get right away.

- Amazon KDP Select – good for the free days if it’s the first book in a series or a standalone, but only done once; for the rest, use Kindle Countdown Deals.

- Kindle Unlimited – it kind of comes as a package deal with KDP Select; you might have the surprise to get more money from KU than from actual sales, but I guess it depends on the book and possibly genre.

- free review copies –  Smashwords coupons work nicely; careful with that, people might accept the book because it’s free and then complain if the story isn’t what they expected or they’re not comfortable with the genre.

- newsletter – the trick is to convince people to sign up; I’m still working on that.

Other things worth mentioning, The Impaler Legacy Omnibus participated in Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. Unfortunately, the blogger it was assigned to didn’t care for vampires so the book didn’t make it to round two. On the bright side, Mark Lawrence critiqued the first page of one of my future novels, yay!

In conclusion, I should probably write erotica or at least romance to make a nice living. The problem  is writing in both genres bores me to death, been there done that, so you’re stuck with sci fi and fantasy, I’m afraid. I should also probably stick to one genre alone instead of writing all over the place, but again, I get bored if I do that, so no. The good news is the sales and income tripled compared to last year as opposed to only doubling in 2014. The even better news is the reviews, while still scarce, are mostly positive. So I guess I’m getting somewhere, or at least closer to that point.

The slightly concerning part is I’m developing a hoarding problem when it  comes to cover art for books I won’t have time to write for 2 or 3 years. I already have 10 covers all done and paid for. *facepalm* Those are books I definitely have to write!

For next year, the plan is to release the second book in The Stolen Wings series, a scifi standalone novel, the third book in Broken People series plus a short story, and 3 or 4 new Law and Crucible Saga installments. I don’t know if there is time for anything else, but we’ll see.

Indie Friday: Strength to Let Go

Guest post by Alina Popescu

Hello everyone!  A pleasure to be here on Indie Friday and have a little chat with you all about my latest release, Strength to Let Go, the first book in the Tales of the Werewolf Tribes series. Yes, I know, another Romanian author writing vampires, werewolves, and other paranormal stuff! It’s weird, I am close to two Romanian authors (Ioana and Aimee) and they both love the paranormal realm as much as I do. If you see a pattern there, relax, it’s pure coincidence!

As a lot of authors will tell you, things rarely go according to plan. Strength to Let Go, for example, wasn’t even supposed to be the first book in the series! And that’s the least of my problems. It was supposed to have a completely different plot, but things got twisted and the main character, Shiki, was too chatty. So after a lot of plotting and planning, the book was written (mostly during last year’s NaNoWriMo) and here it is today – rewrites and a few rounds of editing later. 

The werewolf series was not actually inspired by a wolf, not a real one anyway! The idea sparked because of my White Swiss Shepherd. I was watching all the Cesar Millan series I could find (along with a similar British show), trying to get a better understanding of my dog and how to get him to obey me more. I then thought it would all be so much easier if I turned into a werewolf. I’d be his alpha of sorts and he’d follow my lead :D Another white wolf took the idea further – the Great White Wolf of local Dacian myths spawned the first tribe I envisioned, the Dacian Wolves, then several more followed. 

Research-wise, writing a werewolf book was a lot different compared to writing a vampire one. Why? Because I did a lot of research on vampires over the years due to a long time interest in how these creatures are portrayed. I wasn’t as familiar with weres, and I wanted to look into wolves in religion and mythology, not just the lycan stories. I combined a bit of mythology with a lot of cultural and historical references in how tribes are created (and how they fight each other).  For example, the Chinese and Mongols aren’t very friendly, there are a lot of tribes covering a relatively small territory in Europe—but they fight each other all the time, and the American tribe is deeply rooted in Native culture. 

The best part about writing this was Shiki. I’ve spent a lot of time with this character in role-play writing, so I knew him better than almost all my other characters when I started writing. It’s fascinating to have a complete story on your lead, to know exactly what makes him tick or how he’d react to certain situations. That does not mean I wasn’t in for a few surprises! Oh, he made sure I wasn’t just relaxing through it, so he’d challenge me once in a while. 

 

In the end, turns out what happened was so much better than the plan, and Strength to Let Go became the kind of story I always wanted to tell. 

~~~~
 

Strength to Let Go by Alina Popescu

 
Available on: Amazon

Official website: http://alina-popescu.com

Follow the author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoralinapopescu

and Twitter: @alina_popescu

Indie Friday: Matchbook

Guest post by Desireé Prosapio

One day I was sitting at my desk, glancing through writing contests and I came across one that sounded intriguing.  The prompt was to write a short story based on one key action: someone discovers a phone number written in a matchbook.

The story ended up being a finalist in the contest, and while it didn’t win, I found the story was one I couldn’t let go. Carol, the protagonist just grabbed me and she came alive in my mind.  I felt like she deserved to have her story told.

Matchbook is set in Downtown San Antonio and is the story of Carol. Told in first person, Carol has that sharp wit and snarky come backs that draw you in – even though she’s homeless. In the course of the first few chapters, you learn that her daughter’s death unraveled her life. Carol is convinced her daughter didn’t die of an accidental overdose; she believes her daughter was murdered.

Matchbook is filled with a few other characters that also stood up in my imagination and demanded their share of the spotlight.  The favorite of many of my readers is Maurice, her fellow homeless person, who helps Carol uncover clues and make connections. But Maurice, with his cross-dressing fashion sense and over the top sense of the dramatic, manages to give Carol something she hasn’t had in so many years: someone to care about.

Matchbook isn’t just a story of solving a crime; it’s a story of a mother’s journey out of grief and into healing.

Writing Matchbook – at least the first draft – was pretty easy. It was one of the stories that pours right of you. What was tough was what came afterward. Once it was done, I was fortunate enough to land an agent, and she made great suggestions about the story. While it never found a traditional publisher, I learned the value of having a complete stranger give me feedback. From that point on I went through the book with writing groups and beta readers, learning and honing along the way.

The most satisfying moment was sending out a notice to my fans letting them know the book was finally done and available for download.  Seeing so many people who had said they were interested then actually download a novel gave me a thrill like no other. I was hooked!

Matchbook definitely shakes up the gender on a number of levels. The character is vulnerable in a way most of us can’t imagine. She is not a woman with training and expertise that helps her rise to the challenge before her. And yet she is heroic in a way that satisfies and delivers that emotional, immersive read we all love.

What has been the biggest challenge with this book? Frankly, I think some people wonder if Matchbook is the right fit for them because it does involve the issue of homelessness and alcohol addiction. But at its heart Matchbook is the story of one person’s journey, a story that starts and ends in the heart, with plenty of laugh-out-loud and action scenes in between.

~~~~
 

Matchbook by Desireé Prosapio

 
Available on: Amazon

Official website: http://www.wdprosapio.com

Follow the author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DesireeProsapio

and Twitter: @desireeprosapio

Indie Friday: Xalien the Purple Alien

Guest post by Michelle Path

Hello. My name is Michelle Path and I am a children’s book author. My first book Suki and the Seedling was released in Australia in August 2014, the same time as my first book published in the UK, called Xalien the Purple Alien, was released.

How I came to be discovered by Rowanvale Books is a serendipitous event. They found me on Twitter. What are the chances? I was impressed by their dedication to helping their authors to succeed in the cutthroat world of publishing. Since Xalien was released, I have had another four books published with them and have another 5 to be released this year.

Xalien the Purple Alien is about a small purple alien who crashes to Earth. She finds herself in a garden, where she is discovered by three children, Jessica, Adam and Sarah. The children take her to the fair where they learn about each other and get into strange and amusing situations as Xalien tries to fit in with humans.

Xalien was created as I walked my dogs one afternoon. This is how I find inspiration and get in the zone. I was thinking of something to write about when the idea of an alien came to mind. My favourite colour is purple and then I began trying to come up with a title. I tried to find a name that rhymed with alien, and Xalien popped into my head. So there it was, the title of my next story. When I got home I began writing the story. It was quite easy to write and came together very quickly. When Rowanvale Books asked me to send them a manuscript, this was the one I chose. They loved it and the first book in my Xalien the Purple series was born. I have since published Xalien the Purple Alien: Xalien Goes to School and have two more Xalien books due for release this year, one about going to the Zoo as well an Xmas special including a limited edition with foils to add an extra bit of sparkle to the festive season.

Xalien almost wrote herself and she brings a cute, adorable character into the lives of children who find her amusing and subsequently fall in love with her. She teaches children messages about tolerance and acceptance as well as telling an enjoyable story that encourages them to read. One little girl would not let her mother give the book as a birthday gift because she adored the alien so much. That alone was great feedback and confirmed to me that Xalien could easily be a character children could fall in love with and enjoy reading about.

I have to admit that Xalien came together quickly. I wrote the story in a few short hours and edited it after letting it sit for a short while, so that I could reread it with an objective mind. This is not always the case and does not reflect the ease of how some of my other books have been written, sometimes slowly and painstakingly with me adding a mere paragraph at a time until the story is finished.

The most satisfying moment for me while writing the book was when I realised I had created something unique and special, an adorable alien that children could not only relate to but learn lessons from. I am very proud of Xalien the Purple Alien and am delighted to be able to present it to readers to enjoy and at times laugh along with.

My hope for this book is that children are entertained and are encouraged to read and learn to have an appreciation and a love for books. Books played a big role in my childhood and it led to me becoming an author. There is something magical about turning the page and identifying with the characters you get to know, as well as being transported to places that are only limited by your imagination.

I hope I have achieved this goal, for it is not only my satisfaction of writing something I am proud of, but that people will enjoy the journey as they turn the pages and discover what adventures lie ahead. Nothing could make me happier than to have engaged my readers and given them something to take with them throughout their lives; a childhood memory of a story that will be etched in their memory and kept somewhere within their hearts and memories.

~~~~
 

Xalien the Purple Alien by Michelle Path

 
Available on: Rowanvale Books, Amazon

Official website: http://michellepath.com.au

Follow the author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michelle-Path-Childrens-book-writer/551595064936515

and Twitter: @mimilovesu

Indie Pride Day

The lighting was wrong, the photographer was in a hurry, and it's really hard to edit photos with a bright window right in front of you so the colors are a little off, but ... here are my books! :)

Amazon is changing its paying terms for Kindle Unlimited

This month, the news broke out that Amazon is changing the way it will pay writers, starting with July 1st. Some panicked, some protested loudly and, apparently, uselessly, and some decided to pull their books out of KDP Select.

To clear out part of the misunderstanding, this change will only affect the books enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program. Up until now, every writer with books enrolled in KU was paid equal shares of the Amazon KU trust fund, based on the number of downloads/burrows of those books, after 10% of the book was read. Let's face it, this wasn't exactly fair, paying the same for novels and a-few-pages-long books.

From July 1st, writers will be paid based on the number of pages read. Yep, you read it right. It's kind of creepy how much data Amazon has access to, isn't it? Well, there isn't much we can do about that. Most sales come from Amazon, so if indie writers want to make a few (more) bucks, they're stuck with it. 

Now, Amazon claims they will use normalized pages, so font size and line spacing won't matter. I guess they'll go by word count, which makes sense. Since various gadgets have different screen size, word count would definitely make more sense.

One thing is supposed to be sure, from now on people won't get rich only with shorts any longer. And badly written prose won't work either. I guess long series will work best if you manage to write compelling ones and don't get bored writing about the same characters and world all the time. Otherwise, decent novels at least will be needed for a decent income.

From a writer's perspective, the good part--aside from being paid fairly--would be to get detailed reports so we could figure out what are the parts where readers stop reading our books. That would be a great experience. Amazon's report haven't been so user friendly so far, so I'm not holding my breath. I guess we'll find out on August 15th.

The down side, from what I see, would be that, with all the ebook reading options available these days, some read pages might go unaccounted for. 10% is easier to track than a whole book. There probably won't be too many cases, but there will be some for sure.

The other big concern is that there's no way to track the read pages from the outside. We could track the sales/downloads from the live dashboard reports and the book rank, but now Amazon could feed us any data they want with no way for us to check it. Something to think about.

And there's also the issue of the limited profit, based on the size of the KU trust fund, but that's nothing new.

So, how does this affect me? I had Broken People enrolled in KU over the winter, but it never really took off. In three months, it had only a handful of KU downloads, so I removed it from the KDP Select program at the end of the term. At the moment, I have two titles available via KU, an urban fantasy novel, The Weight of a Wing, and a paranormal short story, Breaking the Chains. The short story has been recently released so it's too early to tell how it will do, but the novel is doing rather well because of KU and I'm reluctant to change that. 

Bottom of line, I'll keep things the way they are for now. If everything goes well, the whole The Stolen Wings series will be available via KU in the end. Broken People won't be because it failed to find its target audience there and, frankly, it's too much of a hassle removing it from the other vendors to ensure Amazon exclusivity. I haven't decided yet what I'll do with my upcoming space opera saga. It depends on how things work out over the summer. So we'll see.

Indie Friday: Chasing Down the Night

Guest post by Francis Guenette

Chasing Down the Night is the third book in the Crater Lake Series. All the novels transport readers to a rural setting on the shores of a lake where they encounter characters who quickly become friends and family. Youth issues, family dynamics and relationships are explored while challenging stereotypes of right and wrong.

The latest book in the series opens with a scene that sets the tone for everything that is to come. A cougar stalks the dreams of a young boy. Trauma counsellor and contender for main character, Izzy Montgomery has taken on the role of director at nearby Micah Camp (a home for young people coming out of the foster care system and trying to make decisions about the next stage of their lives.) Liam Collins, a man who has fought a hard struggle to find peace of mind, is busy caring for chickens and children while preparing for an upcoming wedding. Beulah runs the organic bakery and organizes a memorial ball tournament. Her same-sex partner, Bethany, takes on a research job at the Camp and begins to discover her own strengths. Bethany’s niece, Lisa-Marie (who is, for many, the main character) arrived as a troubled sixteen-year-old on the first pages of the first book and from that time she has been head-over-heels in love with Justin. Now eighteen, with exciting opportunities for her future spread at her feet, the sparks fly between the two of them as they continue to feel the impact of the past and must relearn valuable lessons in order to move on.

All of the novels dig deeply into the emotional landscapes of the various characters. And yet, life is so much more than problems to be faced. The everyday rural realities encountered often leave readers chuckling.

The setting, characters and real-life dilemmas described in my novels come out of a blend of my own work and life experiences. I throw them all into the melting pot of imagination and out pops fiction. What an amazing process!

Reviewers have commented that what is unique about my writing style is the ability to tell stories from multiple points-of-view within the same novel. This style creates intimacy and evokes emotion. I was surprised when reviewers found my writing unique because I couldn’t conceive of any other way to tell these stories. Life is not black and white. The best path to empathy is found when we can envision the situations people end up in from as many viewpoints as possible. 

Writing subsequent books in an ongoing series has unique challenges. For example, how much do I tell of the previous books? I work hard to ensure that each novel is stand-alone and that involves a delicate balance between providing enough information so the story makes sense without bogging it down.

By far, the most satisfying part of my writing process is seeing the characters I have created evolve and grow from what they were in the first book to the people they are now.

What do I hope to accomplish by launching these books into the world? The answer is simple. I want readers to feel as though they have been changed. A new way of looking at some part of life has caused an ah-ha moment and thus, what they know about themselves and the world around them has shifted. That epiphany is what I am chasing down the night to capture.

~~~~
 

Chasing Down the Night by Francis Guenette

Available on: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Kobo

Official website: http://disappearinginplainsight.com

Follow the author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/francisguenetteauthor/377139735716267

and Twitter: @FrancisGuenette