Today is one of those that it is good to be indoors. The wond is whipping around, sending the leaves flying. this means once the wind stops, I shall be out there picking up leaves.
My eldest is quite disappointed. He had thought to miss the annual leaf fall, but it waited for him!
I was very cheered to read the Book Standard article about how well romance, inparticular M&B is doing. There is a lvoely quote from Kate Walker in the piece. Iti s a reprint from The Bookseller. Kate Allan highlighted it on her new blog -- Marketing for Authors 2.0.
tis the season to enter contests for published authros. I have been busy entering contests. Several RWA chapters run contests for published books. The main criteria for entry is the prize and whether or not I can pay by Paypal or some other form of online payment. As well as who is judging the contest. For example, I am far more likely to enter a contest which has booksellers and librarians as judges or has some sort of free advertising as the top prize. The best place to find contest info is on the back pages of the RWR.
The top contest of course is the RITA, and I have entered that one. You do need to be careful when entering contests to read the rules. Some contests specify a general copyright date,while others want the first North American printing date or the US copyright date. The Rita currently has the general copyright date. I know that GH has arrived and am awaiting confirmation that A Noble Captive has arrived. A Noble Captive, although it will not appear in paperback until 2007, appeared in hardback in 2006. Luckily Liz Fielding alerted me to the potential for this sort of problem awhile ago.
Anyway, I have done that part of my admin tasks and need to get back to my wip.
One of the things I look at when I write is -- are the public and private stakes high enough? What is going to happen to these people, in particular the heroine, if she does not succeed. If life will simply go on as normal, then the stakes are not high enough and I need to up them dramatically. Similarly what is going to happen to the hero if he fails? How can they fail? That sort of thing.
1 comment:
Very good point about "are the stakes high enough," Michelle. As I'm at the point right now of figuring out if these characters of mine have anything at stake at all, I'm grateful for the reminder!
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