I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have Ellis Vidler as my guest today. She is one talented lady, and incredibly nice to boot. What a combination.
Ellis lives and writes in South Carolina ~
Piedmont (which is what the upstate, northwestern part of the state is referred as.) She's also an editor and has taught fiction writing. Her books, available
at Amazon.com, are suspense with varying degrees of romance.
Please join me in welcoming Ellis to An Indie Adventure.
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Square Pegs, Round Holes, and Self-Publishing
One of the reasons I chose to self-publish my new book is
that I’m not a genre purist.
Back when I was submitting to agents, I got many
compliments on the writing, the characters, and so on. But then they asked for
changes to better fit the genre, or they rejected it outright, saying it
wouldn’t be marketable as either romance or suspense, because it either had too
much or too little of whatever. My square pegs didn’t fit their round holes. This
went on for several years, and I got discouraged, to say the least.
Then Amazon opened my eyes. I self-published The Peeper, a police procedural/suspense
(with a little romance) with Jim Christopher, a retired LEO and my co-author. It
got good reviews and sold reasonably well—a very encouraging development.(An aside here: LEO...Law Enforcement Officer, who knew~L.A.)
I was about to self-publish Cold Comfort, another suspense novel with “strong romantic
elements,” when I met Karen Syed of Echelon Press. Fortunately, she’s not a genre
hardliner. She released it last December because the heroine owns a Christmas
shop, but that meant a year’s wait for me. I no longer have that kind of
patience.
So now I’m committed to self-publishing. As long as we have
the ability and means to ensure that it’s a quality publication, I’m for it. I
have several readers who point out errors, plot holes, and factual mistakes in
my books.
Time of Death had all of
those—everything from a character picking up a pack of cigarettes in a store (I
didn’t realize they’re kept behind the counter now) to one of the dreaded TSTL
moments for my heroine. I hope I and my readers spotted them all. I know it’s a
much better book now, but a few glitches always slip through. (Another aside:TSTL...Too Stupid To Live)
Self-publishing still carries a stigma.
One reason is that
many authors put their book out as soon as it’s completed, not realizing it
needs serious, honest input from others. We can’t view our babies
objectively—you know the old saw: “Every old crow thinks hers is the prettiest
in the patch.” True. We do. We see what we think we typed, we’re convinced it
all makes sense because we know the story, and we include “facts” we’re so sure
of we don’t bother to check them.
The article on covers featured on this blog a few weeks ago
offered some excellent advice. Covers are extremely important, even more so
with eBooks. Try for a professional-looking cover that speaks for your
book—it’s worth it. And make sure it looks good as a thumbnail. That’s how most
readers first see it.
So hooray for Amazon and self-publishing! Let us not abuse
the opportunity. J
Leslie, I love your new book, Dare to Believe. Good story!
Thanks for having me today.
Ellis
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Thank you, Ellis, for your candor. And lucky us, she's giving a copy, either digital or print of Time of Death to one lucky person who leaves a comment.
And lucky us again, there will be an excerpt from this book on Saturday the 8th.
Comments from this post and the excerpt will be entered in the drawing.
Ciao
L.A.