251

(13 replies, posted in Cop Shop)

Gotta see #9, Janet. A cult classic!

252

(13 replies, posted in Cop Shop)

Well, you gave away 1 & 8. Suggest you withhold the answers until the week is over.

3. We're No Angels   Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn
6. Analyze This   Robert DeNiro
9. The Big Lebowski   Jeff Bridges

253

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I've learned enough here that I've just become an editor myself, Craig. Welcome!

Sherry V. Ostroff wrote:

From everything I've heard, I would never go right to a publisher. Everyone I've talked to, who has been in this business, has said to stay away. I try to learn from those with experience.

You obviously have not talked to me. I went the agent route at first and received nothing but rejections and, in greater amounts, no responses at all. So I self-published my first novel using CreateSpace. But then I discovered publishers who accept agent-less submissions, and I've been with indie publishers ever since. Granted, you lose profit as a result, but that's in return for having a lot of the heavy lifting done by someone else. The trick is to find a compatible publisher, one that is author-friendly and amenable to addressing concerns. Marketing, though a good publisher helps with that, is still primarily up to the author - as it will be, unless you're a top name like Grisham or Coben, even if you have a Big 5 publisher.

255

(9 replies, posted in Cop Shop)

Die Hard! You got me.

256

(9 replies, posted in Cop Shop)

"I want to spend Christmas in Elmira with my family." That's a direct quote from It's a wonderful Life. I can't get any closer than that! At first I thought of Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, but that was for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. I give up.

257

(9 replies, posted in Cop Shop)

9. Sounds like Jackie Brown, but Pam Grier smuggles money, not drugs. From the novel Rum Punch be Elmore Leonard
10. It's a Wonderful Life. (Your clue today nailed that for me, because the original clue was too common!) James Stewart   From a story, The Greatest Gift, by Philip Van Doren Stern (had to look up that last bit).

258

(4 replies, posted in Marketing Your Writing)

Considering the time it's been on Amazon, a 20,000 sales ranking is good!

259

(11 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Thanks, everyone. There's still time to finish  if you've started reviewing it - and get mentioned in the Acknowledgements!

260

(9 replies, posted in Cop Shop)

2. Strangers on a Train   Farley Granger, Robert Walker   Patricia Highsmith
4. Mystic River   Sean Penn, Tim Robbins   Dennis Lehane
6. Charley Varrick... Walter Matthau   John H. Reese  (Great movie!)
7. Serpico   Al Pacino   Peter Maas
11. Vertigo   James Stewart   Boileau-Narcejac

261

(11 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Just got offered a contract from my publisher for The Telltale Tattoo. I will leave the novel on site until it's published, which will likely be a few months from now. So there's still time to weigh in before my editor slams the door. smile

262

(17 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

j p lundstrom wrote:

Question: Is an author who writes badly to be forgiven as long as he/she tells a good story?


No!

263

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Thanks, JP! This marketing thing is a pain. And the industry has us indies by the short ones. Lower your price to get more downloads or face oblivion among the slew of books coming out every day. Amazon loves it; readers, who like free/almost free, love it. Artists in the music industry face the same challenge - give your creations up for pittance in return for a wider audience. But that audience - and mine - will wait for the next deal before shelling out money. And I can't blame them. (sigh) If there's any consolation, it's that the stuff-shirt Big-5 publishers are feeling the pain. But I'm happy being an author associated with an indie publisher. I've already had a career, and this is just fun! smile

264

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Thanks, guys. The sales ranking continues to rise today!

265

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

It's amazing what lowering the price of a book to $.99 for a week in conjunction with a promo will do for sales ranking. Today, the first day of the discount, "When the Reaper Comes" jumped over 1,200,000 ranks. I have no idea how many book sales that represents (have to wait for the figures from my publisher), and it probably isn't that many in reality, but it's still cool to see that spike!

graymartin wrote:

  That would take the judging burden off Sol and the editorial board

I'm curious about this "editorial board." Who are the actual judges? When these contests started, we had names. Now just a winner is announced. A little transparency would be good, IMO.

267

(32 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Woman to Winston Churchill: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd have to give you poison."

Churchill's response: "My dear, if I were your husband, I would gladly take it."

268

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Janet Taylor-Perry wrote:

No clue. I just tried to delete mine for your Reaper, and couldn't find a way to do it.


Aw, you wanted to delete a review from my book?  Heartbroken.  sad

269

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I've started to review a few stories, only to conclude I couldn't continue, for one reason or another. Yet what I've done stays as a "draft review" and never goes away from my list. Is there a way to get rid of it?

270

(17 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Way to go, Bill. Now get yourself an Amazon author page.

In the book I just completed (still up on site if you're interested smile ), I had Vietnamese characters speaking to each other. To me, it was obvious they would be speaking in their native language, and I thought no such explanation from me (author intrusion) was needed. Later, a Vietnamese character talks to an American. Because he's become a successful businessman, he has learned English, though he hasn't quite gotten down the use of contractions - a way to set his voice apart. And this same character speaks to an ethnic-Chinese Malaysian, who has had more of a worldly experience than the man from Vietnam, so he speaks in rather fluent English. It's the context of the characters that provides the background for the speech, obviating the need for the author to "explain." The reader will understand. In another story of mine, I have a Lebanese-American ISIS soldier meeting an Arabic sheikh. He speaks Arabic to the sheikh in the greeting, but then the author (me) states that the sheikh switches to English in talking with his acolyte. He does this so his Iraqi bodyguards will not be privy to the conversation. Again, I don't need to say why he does this - it's for the reader to figure it out.

It's a discussion-worthy topic that probably has classes devoted to it in Creative Writing courses. Thanks for bringing it up, Dirk.

Janet Taylor-Perry wrote:

You can say it once that the characters said in Italian, and then it should be a given, but you write it in English. Throw in a word that everybody knows now and then, and MAYBE remind periodically that they are speaking Italian.

I kinda disagree, Janet. If you've established the dialogue is in Italian, then you can't really insert an Italian word here and there. That would be for English-speaking characters to do. Like a mob boss giving an order in English and ending it with "Capisce?"

I got about a 50% review rate from the Read and Review program, though it's supposed to be 100%. The fee (they have discounts occasionally) covers 30 book requests. Some of those scofflaws had the nerve to request another book when I used Choosy again. I politely told them, sure, I'll send you the next book after you give that review you promised for the first one. I wouldn't use that program again. Regarding Bookbuzz, I have no experience.

Another thing I forgot to mention is Editorial Reviews on your Amazon author page. Select a line or two from your best reviews and post them there. Author Central will explain how to do that.

I agree with Mariana about an Amazon promotion. Regarding Choosy Bookworm, is that the Read and Review program? I have had some experience with that and will share if interested. A short $.99 sale is a good idea, but I'd think about doing that in conjunction with a promotion website that has a large social media and e-mail reach. Unless you've got tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook, doing this advertising yourself for the discount won't be as fruitful. Make sure your book is available in pdf, epub and mobi, since bloggers you're querying will have different demands re the format they prefer. And going back to Twitter and Facebook, get in the habit of posting something  about your book on those sites at frequent intervals. If you get "shared" or re-tweeted, you can reciprocate and develop a following. And if you have a book-signing event or blog interview, make sure that gets posted. That's all I've got for now. Good luck!

275

(6 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Excellent!