2014 Successes

Okay, here it is; that dreaded ‘Buy my book’ issue I warned you would happen.

Hubby hates when all the authors make a wall of books between them and the audience at science fiction convention panels. He sees it as a crass commercial. But these days, almost all marketing is left for the author to do; very little is done by the publisher, and that includes the ‘Big Boys’. Most authors - especially new ones - do not have lots of money for marketing, so they take every chance they can to let people know about their book. If you don’t know it exists, how can you buy it?

I made 3 sales in 2014. (So this won’t be that long.)

The Secret in Morris Valley - A paranormal gothic romance novella published by Alban Lake (albanlake.com). It is a trade paperback selling for $6.00. If you are in Omaha and want to see a copy, the Book Worm, currently on 90th Street just north of W Center Rd, has a few copies through the holidays. They only took 3, so I can’t guarantee they still have any. [Note: Since this a romance, I used my pen name, Linda Joy.]

Ondrea is sent by her favorite professor to gather information on the wolves in Morris Valley. But Barry Morris, her host, won’t allow her to do field work on the wolves, saying it’s too dangerous to go out without a well-armed pack of men and vicious dogs. Barry has plans for Ondrea. So do the wolves.

“Truck Driving Women” - This the first published story of Vamps and Cheyenne. It is in the middle of an anthology published by Sky Warrior Books (skywarriorbooks.com) called These Vampires Don’t Sparkle. You can get a paper copy from Amazon for $13.33, an e-book is $4.99. If you really like vampire stories, there is a second volume of this anthology called These Vampires Still Don’t Sparkle that is available as an e-book. No, I don’t have a story in Vol. 2, just letting you know about it.

When terrorists hijack Vamps and Cheyenne, they bite off more than they anticipated.

Cali: A Journey of Discovery - This is a lightly romantic fantasy novel that Alban Lake (albanlake.com) accepted and originally planned to publish in 2014, but its publication has been pushed to February 2015. It will be a trade paperback and e-book. I don’t have any more details, but if you’re interested, keep an eye on the left side bar of this blog; that’s where I’ll post more information when I have it.

Witches don’t drown when they have a thirst for revenge. Sidek had seen a lot of strange cultures, but when he rescued Cali from a flooding river, he made contact with the strangest one yet. Cali was an Atlan, hunting men who had tortured & killed 2 children. She didn’t need a man’s help. But she wasn’t well enough to keep Sidek from tagging along.

Okay, it’s done now, you can breathe again. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog. Eh. Not exactly, because this turned out to take up all of this week’s space. Soooooo... Tune in again next week!

PS. If you want to keep up to date on my sales and appearances, consider subscribing to the free monthly MoonPhaze Publishing e-newsletter. Just send a request to be enrolled at MoonPhazePub@hotmail.com, and we’ll send you a sample copy. You can always unsubscribe at any time.

Secret of Morris Valley

The first of my works that Alban Lake accepted was a paranormal gothic novella called “Secret of Morris Valley.” A novella is too long to be a short story; too short to be a novel. In this case, that means 16,500 words, or roughly 66 pages, depending on type size, page size, ect.

Do you remember gothics? I remember reading some, 3 or 4 decades ago, but I haven’t noticed any on the shelves recently. So when I saw a call for submissions in 2006 or 2007 for gothic stories, I admit my interest was piqued.

Gothics were romance stories where the woman falls in love with a handsome stranger who lives in some out-of-the-way place - usually far from civilization. Once the woman arrives at his home, it becomes apparent that he, his family, and his servants are all keeping some deep dark secret from her. As the story progresses, she becomes suspicious, worried and frightened, doesn’t know who she can trust... Of course, in the end, the secret is revealed, the woman doesn’t care, and the happy couple fall into each other’s arms.

Yep, that describes “Morris Valley.”

Unfortunately, that anthology chose not to accept my attempt at a gothic, although they did say it had been between mine and another for the final selection. As the saying goes, “Close, but no cigar.”

So I found myself with this overlong gothic story in a market where gothics were no long appreciated, apparently. I had added some paranormal to it, because paranormal was/is hot, but that hadn’t landed me in the anthology. I kept my eyes open, but I could not find a market to submit a gothic novella that had werewolves in it. Until I decided to take a chance and send it to Alban Lake.

We are looking for a July or August release. Stay tuned, for I’ll keep you informed as the details are worked out!

Hanging On

Hanging On

This is why I’ve hung on all those years of (apparently) not making any progress as an author. This is what I dreamed of way back in the fourth grade when I started writing stories. But when push came to shove, when I reached adulthood, I had a family to help support, and ‘author’ just wasn’t reliable enough as an income, so I had to get a ‘real’ job.

I still wrote. My first husband once told me I wrote on a sixth-grade level, and I gave up writing for a year or so. But he was a manipulator, and probably jealous. Eventually, the stories insisted I let them out again. So I did, but I never let him see them again.

After our divorce, I took a deep breath and moved on. To improve my skills, I studied grammar, joined critique groups, attended writer’s workshops. And I wrote. Co-workers became accustomed to seeing me in the lunch room, scribbling onto any size or shape of paper. One told me several times that I just HAD to tell her when I got published. (That reminds me, I have to look her up and let her know.)

And finally, I feel I’ve taken a step forward. An anthology has accepted one of my short stories. A small press has accepted both my novella and my first fantasy novel.

I have arrived!

Well, maybe not actually arrived. But I have completed an important step, one I’ve been seriously trying to take for the past 15 years. I will be published. (Take several deep breaths of satisfaction - try not to hyperventilate.)

I’m not sure when the anthology will come out. It did have an expected launch date of October when I submitted, but the editor got so many great submissions on the subject, it grew from one volume to two, and I haven’t heard if the launch date has been adjusted. The small press is trying to launch both my efforts in July or August.

I’ll tell you more about all these stories in future episodes. But if you’ll excuse me, right now I have more submissions to send out, and more stories to write, edit and polish. An author’s work is never done. Good thing I love doing it!

Still More of Trudy's Universes

I think if I could sit here and work on my stories for 10-12 hours a day, 6 days a week, I would not need any ‘new’ ideas for at least a decade. Think I’m kidding? Here’s some more of my folders:

G is for Gothic. 3 decades ago, ‘Gothic’ was a specific type of romance where the setting was some out-of-the-way household owned by a brooding but handsome bachelor who is obviously keeping some horrible secret from the heroine. I never read a lot of them, but I do have one story in this folder that I wrote and submitted to an anthology. I came )( this close to being accepted, but in the end, they chose other stories. So this story is currently sitting on a different editor’s desk, waiting for him to make a decision.

H is for Halves. A few years ago, I was told by another author, “Everybody’s writing vampires and werewolves.” She was right, but I went ahead and created my own anyway. A vampire is neither alive nor dead, so he could be thought of as half of both. A werewolf is partly human and partly wolf, so he’s halfway both, too. And these guys have a friend who helps them do things, who is of mixed ancestry, so … also a half. Thus I named this trio ‘The Halves’. None of them talk very much, which makes getting a complete story out of them a long deal.

K is for Kandi. Kandi is a member of the same alien race that produced the Atlans, but the crew of this ship was her parents, who had left home for their honeymoon and never went back. When their ship was punctured by a freak meteorite, baby Kandi was thrown into a lifeboat. The lifeboat landed in the Dakota badlands, and Kandi was adopted by a Native American couple, and raised as one of their own. Kandi joins the Space Fleet (precursor to the Fleet that Mac belongs to) and Kandi is kidnapped by a derelict ship her crew is exploring. Kandi spends the rest of her long life exploring the universe, gathering together a rag-tag crew of aliens.

We’re over halfway through my universe folders now. Do you see any patterns in what I tend to write? I do. I’ve been aware of them for some time, and that knowledge has encouraged me to explore new universes. As we age, we have opportunities to grow, to adapt our outlook on life. I suspect my newer universes reflect that change in me and some of my universes may – eventually – be left to their own devices.