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DEAR READERS, WRITERS, and people who stumbled upon this blog because of its most popular post ever (“You Can’t Shave a Vagina”):

I am proud to be an Indie Author, and Indie Pride Day is July 1st. What happens on Indie Pride Day? Look, I made a pretty poster to tell you all about it, and there are no vaginas in sight:
A friend asked me today: what is an Indie Author? My definition of an Indie Author is either a self-published author (one who publishes directly, through Amazon and other online outlets), or an author who publishes through a small “independent” publishing house.

Indies are the folks who refuse to submit query after query for months or years to try to get an literary agent. Having an agent is a necessity if you want a book to even be considered by an editor at the big publishing houses.

Here’s a rough…

Dell is a girl who grows up on a remote outpost with herders (her guardians) who may or may not be her parents. They seldom speak or tell her anything, because the mandatory drugs that make them immortal and committed to duty also keep them quiet and forgetful. She has always been on her own to learn, and she’s become literate through the outpost’s telecommunications with its farm. But officially, Dell does not exist. She has no number, no portacath for drugs and no communications wristscreen. She is different in another way: she’s young, an aberration in a loveless world where the only creatures that breed are animals and primitive tribes considered outlaws. And now her guardians are being separated, and she must leave her home and find a place to belong. 

Dell Zero will be 99 cents today and four more days (Kindle ebook). Grab a copy and let me know what you think about its future world.

You know my bookseller friend Peter Snell, of Barton’s in Leatherhead? (He’s the co-host of our Surrey Hills Radio show So You Want To be A Writer.) Peter is a staunch supporter of indie authors, and he mentioned to me that he’d been talking to an indie writer I know who wanted advice on revamping her novel cover.

Oh you mean Alison Ripley Cubitt, I said. Her science fiction novel?

It’s not science fiction, said Peter. It’s a contemporary eco-thriller.

And therein lay Alison’s biggest problem.

So how did she end up with a cover that sent the wrong message? How was she persuaded to change it – because she’d made that choice for a good reason. And what did she change it to?

I thought this would make a useful case study. Publishers often rebrand covers if they keep a title in print a long time, and…

Words Written:           19622

I did suffer some lazy writing moments, but I hope that I’ve overcome them. I ended up going back to the beginning of what I’m currently writing and added a couple more chapters from another characters point of view. I think it flows a lot better now, and it’s possibly why I was having a hard time writing. Sometimes my brain just won’t let me continue when it knows something isn’t right. I just wish it was better at clueing me in on the issue.

Sales:                           106

Borrows:                     456

Free Downloads:         29

So, yeah, I really like KDP Unlimited. Those numbers are amazing, the best I’ve seen in the almost three years I’ve been published. I realize I’m technically losing money by being in it, however, after all this time I know that I wouldn’t be getting that many sales if my books weren’t in it. It’s…

Because Ridgetop is my fifth book, I’ve a lot less stage fright with this launch. I already know some people will love it and want more and others won’t like it (and may throw rotten tomatoes.) What matters is that I love creating characters and stories, and it turns out that putting my work on stage like this is not a total waste of time. Ridgetop is now available at Amazon.com as ebook ($2.99) and paperback ($14.99).

We took on a big project this weekend — ripping out our old sod. There was a clear difference between me and the husband’s fitness levels.

Last weekend the hubby and I spent quality time together ripping apart our backyard. Thanks to our dogs, half of our lawn died. The other half succumbed to  crabgrass. It was time for some old fashion, back-breaking DIY work — digging up the old sod and reseeding the lawn.

Initially my plan was simply to replace the brown spots with grass seed and deal with the crabgrass in the fall. It seemed manageable.

Well that wasn’t good enough for the hubby. Nope. He wanted to reseed the entire backyard.

“Since you’re more fit and healthy, it would be a snap for us,” he assured me.

Within 15 minutes of starting this expanded DIY project, I realized that “us” meant “me.”

All That…

A short while ago a group of authors got together to write an anthology of humorous and dark work, called For Whom The Bell Trolls. The authors receive no financial reward for their work. Net profits go to the charity, Equality Now. However, that’s not the reason to read this book – the reason  to read it is because it is hugely entertaining and  brilliantly illustrated.

Each story or poem is based around the theme of trolls. You will find some great writing inside, trust me on that. Here is a snippet of my own short story, Boiling Point, which I’m proud to have had included in this great ‘antrollogy’…

troll noun:troll; plural noun: trolls (in folklore) an ugly cave-dwelling creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf.

John Darby stood by the front door and steeled himself for the weekly ordeal. He adjusted the peak of…

One

The car was a ten-year-old Buick with 193,000 miles, bought with every bit of Angela’s savings plus most of what she’d earned from the summer tour. Everything she owned was stuffed in the trunk and piled inside, leaving a tight space for herself behind the steering wheel. Atop a box on the passenger seat, the theater company’s glossy souvenir program stuck out of her shoulder bag. Her bio and glamour photo were printed inside: Angela Henderson, Aldonza in The Man of La Mancha. The tour had gone on without her, but she did not yet feel separated. Performing was real life, not this. In real life, she did not need a car.

She’d left Chicago that morning, a spider swinging out on her own thin thread. Her voice might be gone—temporarily—but this was no time to lose her nerve. Everything new was scary in the beginning. Like driving for…