I’m excited to participate in a different kind of blog tour today. It’s the Work in Progress Blog Tour!
One of my favorite authors, PC Zick (photo), nominated me to share with you my current Work in Progress. Check out Patricia’s WiP on her blog HERE and her books on Amazon HERE.
The rules of the tour are:
Link back to the person who nominated you.
Nominate other authors.
Write the opening line(s) of your first three chapters from your WiP.
Since I’m super late in joining the tour and my other author friends have already participated, I’m only nominating one writer, so you have no excuse but to check her out…
Anna Belfrage! Anna (photo) is an amazingly talented writer responsible for the eight-book “Graham Saga.” Check out her blog HERE and her books on Amazon HERE.
And now…
My current WiP is the second book in the Culpepper Saga. Our hero, John, is spending most of his time in the colony of Virginia, but his family is living in England under the dark cloud of a civil war. Here are the opening lines of the first three chapters of my WiP, “John Culpepper the Merchant,” releasing in May 2015.
Chapter 1 – The King
The King marched into the room, unannounced. His footfall echoed off the stone walls as he paraded through the middle of an active session of Parliament and was greeted with stunned silence.
Chapter 2 – John
John Culpepper had been sitting idle in Jamestown for the last ten months. He had never tarried in Virginia for such a length of time before.
Chapter 3 – The Doldrums
She sat idle, unmoving in the dim morning light. Her sails hung limp just as they had for the last two days. John restlessly stared across her bow at the unending sea of glass that lay before him.
I just finished “Roanoke: The Lost Colony” by Angela Hunt.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this book. As you can see, the cover is absolutely stunning, but it has nothing to do with the story, not even a little bit. As the title indicates, the story is about the missing colonists of Roanoke, and I always enjoy seeing personalities put to historical figures. While I sincerely appreciate the time and energy that went into researching the documents and the history, the characters in this story weren’t very likeable. Reverend Thomas Colman was pretty much a jerk, and his wife Jocelyn starts as a sassy woman who speaks her mind but becomes weak and spineless as the story progresses. The book is touted as a romance, and the two finally get together in the last pages of the book, but it was too little too late and completely out of character for him, seeing as he had been a jerk for the first 98% of the book. The other characters were hit or miss, most disappearing before you even got a chance to know them. The one thing that kept me reading was to find out the author’s impression of what happened to the colonists, but nope, we didn’t. Not even a theory. Nothing. The book just ended.
There were a couple things that drove me to drink. There were no upholstered chairs in the 1500s and certainly no tea in the colonies. Historical inaccuracies like that make me wonder how true the rest of the history-part of the story was. Also, I understand the characters speaking with ‘twas and ‘tis, but it really didn’t need to be ongoing ad nauseum throughout the narrative. ‘Twould be better if it ‘twas written without all the ‘tis and ‘twas. ‘Twouldn’t it?
In general, I wanted to like it, but I really, really wanted an ending.
I’m pleased to reveal the cover for my coming book, “I, John Culpepper.” Release date April 10, 2015.
Amazon Blurb
John Culpepper was born into a privileged childhood, surrounded by abundant wealth, vast land holdings, and stately English manors. As he grew, he was expected to follow family tradition—attend law school and serve in Parliament, following which he would retire to a quiet life as a country gentleman.
John, however, had different desires. He longed to captain a mighty ship, to hear the snap of the sails, to taste the salty spray on his lips. To follow his dreams, John would have to risk being disinherited by his unyielding father. He would have to defy family convention. He would ultimately be forced to choose between the woman he loved and his mistress—the sea.
“I, John Culpepper” is a work of historical fiction based on the life of the 17th-century man historians refer to as John Culpepper the Merchant. He is believed to be the progenitor of the modern-day American Culpeppers. He was my 10th great-grandfather.
“I, John Culpepper” will be released April 10, 2015. It is the first of four books in the Culpepper Saga. Stay tuned to this page to learn about some of the characters over the next four weeks.
In the bloodiest years of our nation’s history, a young mother was left alone to endure the ravages of the Civil War and a typhoid epidemic that threatened the lives of everyone left behind.
Okatibbee Creek is based on the true story of Mary Ann Rodgers, who survived the collapse of the Confederate dollar, food shortages, and the deaths of countless family members to war and disease. As she searched for a way to feed her children and her orphaned nieces and nephews, Sherman’s Union army marched through Mississippi on their way to destroy Meridian, and Mary Ann found the distant war literally on her doorstep. Help arrived just in the nick of time in the form of an unexpected champion, and Mary Ann emerged on the other side a heroic woman with an amazing story.
Okatibbee Creek is a novel of historical fiction that brings the Deep South vividly to life and will have you cheering and crying through a real-life story of loss, love and survival.
This morning, someone said to me that his book wouldn’t win an award because it was his first book. He said his writing skills are still developing.
Duh. Of course they’re still developing, and hopefully, they always will. If you stop learning, you’re dead. It’s the perfectionist part of us that makes us good writers, or good artists, or good moms. We always try to do better next time. If that desire ever fades, well, it’ll be a very sad day.
Do you ever get to the point in your story where you have to tell the reader a whole laundry list of happenings to help them understand the outcome of the plot? Most times, you can write it in real-time, dispersed throughout the story, but in this instance, it wasn’t part of my main story, and my main characters weren’t involved…until the moment they were. While my characters were going about their drama-filled lives, behind the scenes, the King was causing an uproar which would eventually lead to civil war. I spent three hours writing and rewriting five paragraphs about what happened in the three years prior to my characters becoming involved. The next day, I spent another two hours rewriting and editing the same five paragraphs, trying to make them seem as if they weren’t an obtrusive information dump. How could I disguise five paragraphs and avoid stopping my story dead in its tracks? Geez, in the amount of time I spent, I could have written five chapters, not five paragraphs. I was frustrated and frankly, pissed off.
I thought about something I learned recently and decided to put it to the test.
Instead of information dumping on your reader, add a “dumb puppet” to the scene. The dumb puppet can be dumb or smart, male or female, main character or innocent bystander. It doesn’t matter; it’s just a title. What matters is the character knows nothing of the events and will ask questions. Someone is going to have to explain what the hell is going on to him, and the reader will find out at the same time. Genius!
The benefit of using a dumb puppet is you don’t stop the movement of your story for a stupid information dump. Sometimes they are necessary, but I really hate them. I wish I would have kept both drafts so you could see the difference, but alas, the information dump went out with the trash, and I’m left with only the dumb puppet. I’ve used the dumb puppet before but didn’t realize I was using him or that he had a title. This time, I deliberately used him, and I think he did an upstanding job.
See? I’m still learning. By the way, I won an award on my first book, so it’s possible.
This week I read “The Horror Challenge Volume 1” by JH Glaze.
What a fun idea this is!! Through The Horror Challenge page on Facebook, anyone may suggest a topic for a flash fiction story. Author JH Glaze has taken these random topics and turned them into short stories of less than 1500 words that will give you goosebumps. As a writer, it’s a very creative way to keep your juices flowing. As a reader, ordinary subjects and objects can give you chills you never imagined. If you like short reads while on the train or waiting for an appointment, pick this up and keep it with you. You won’t be bored, that’s for sure!
The second book in The Culpepper Saga takes place in the mid-1600s. John Culpepper finally got himself the boat he wished for throughout the first book (“I, John Culpepper”) and has fulfilled his dream of sailing to the new colony of Virginia. However, while he was away, civil war broke out at home in England, and John is in an understandable hurry to get back to his wife and family.
The Thomas and John sat idle, unmoving in the dim morning light. Her sails hung limp, as they had for the last two days. John ran his hands through his hair and impatiently tapped his foot as he stared across her bow at the unending sea of glass before him. The water blended with the sky, creating a mist as far as the eye could see. There was no horizon, just an endless mirror of foggy steel blue.
He never thought this place existed and had never experienced it on any of his prior journeys, but now, when he most needed to make haste, he found his ship stuck in the middle of it. They called it the doldrums—the place in the ocean where no wind billowed sails, no waves lapped against hulls, and no mighty vessels leapt across the breakers. John had heard tales of ships being stuck in the doldrums for weeks at a time. He prayed this wouldn’t be the case, but on this third morning, he was beginning to wonder if they’d ever break free of it. He’d heard ancient legends of ships carrying horses beneath their decks, and when they found themselves stuck in the doldrums, the crew would build cranes, lower the horses into the water, and allow them to pull the ship. He didn’t know if those stories were true, for he had never witnessed a horse swimming, but in any case, he wasn’t carrying any horses. He was, however, carrying two small rowboats.
“Drop the boats!” he yelled to Benjamin. “We’ll row.”
“Sir?” Benjamin approached. “You want the crew to row us out of the doldrums?”
“Yes, Benjamin. Put them to oar. See to it at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
The men dropped the small boats into the water, tied them to the ship, and began to row. They struggled against the weight of their load, but ever so slowly, the majestic ship began to creep forward.
“How long do you think we’ll have to row?” one of the sailors asked another next to him.
“Until the cap’n gets her back to wind…or until we’re all dead. Whichever comes first.”
“Stop talking and keep rowing!” Benjamin bellowed from the bow.
For the next thirty hours, the sailors took turns rowing. The only movement in the water surrounding them came from the small ripples caused by their oars. After more than a day, the limp sails picked up a small draft and began swaying in the midafternoon sun.
“Sir!” yelled a sailor from one of the boats.
Benjamin turned and saw the sailor pointing up toward the sails. He looked up and saw the sails flutter in the breeze, and an uncommon grin spread across his unshaven face. He jogged to the back of the ship and descended the creaking, wooden steps to the lower deck. He dropped his head below the opening and blinked to adjust to the dim light. “Cap’n, she’s back to wind!”
“Finally!” John jumped from behind his scarred, wooden desk and followed Benjamin up the steps. On deck, he raised his hand to block the sun’s rays as he looked up at the fluttering sails. A cold, Atlantic breeze blew across John’s face, the first he had felt in four days, and he laughed out loud. “Ha! We’ve cleared the doldrums! Benjamin, hoist the sails and get us underway.”
“Aye, sir. Hoist the sails!”
Almost instantly, there was a flurry of activity on the upper deck as weathered sailors began pulling up the small boats, climbing the masts, raising the sails, and shouting commands.
“We have a lot of time to make up,” John said. “I want to be in London within the week.”
I’m posting this for my author friends. We all stick together when we find something that works…or doesn’t.
I have video book trailers for three of my books. I uploaded them to Youtube and generally mention their existence and include the Youtube link as an excuse to market. My video trailer for The Legend of Stuckey’s Bridge was posted on Youtube on May 27, 2013. As of this writing, it has 2,215 views. I’ve been plugging it every now and then for the last twenty months. It is embedded on my blog pages, linked to on my website, and I periodically blast it on Twitter to 6,000 followers and the Stuckey’s Bridge Facebook page to 3,800 followers. The problem with Facebook is if fans aren’t actively following your posts, they never see your status updates in their news feed, and the problem on Twitter is a tweet has a shelf life of only seven minutes. I can’t say the video has sold any books, but it is a useful marketing tool, an excuse to say, “Hey, look at me!”
Fast forward to January 17, 2015.
I realized I hadn’t “uploaded” my book videos to their respective Facebook pages. Honestly, I didn’t know you could do such a thing. I’ve always posted a link to Youtube. Keep in mind Facebook does not like to show links to other sites, so when I do post a link, a majority of my followers never see it in their newsfeed. Well, guess what happened when I uploaded Stuckey’s video to Stuckey’s page!!??…
I uploaded the video at 5 p.m. on a Saturday evening. At 10 p.m., it had 1000 views and 39 shares. People seemed to like sharing and watching the video on Facebook without having to click a link and be taken to a different site, well, that, and Facebook actually let them SEE the post. The video caught fire quickly, and I watched the views go up each time I refreshed the page. Finally, I went to bed.
Sunday evening at 5 p.m. (24-hours in), the tally was at 2200 views and 95 shares. We had accomplished in 24 hours what it took us 20 months to do on Youtube. I knew being Sunday, the numbers would grow by leaps and bounds for the rest of the evening, so I watched. (I also added the Amazon link to the comments.)
Sunday 7 p.m. – 2900 views, 114 shares. (6 views per minute since 5 p.m.)
Sunday 8 p.m. – 3400 views, 140 shares. (8 views per minute since 7 p.m.)
I thought the viralness (my new word) would die down since people had to go back to work on Monday morning, but I was wrong. The views and the shares kept growing.
Monday 2 p.m. – 4675 views, 170 shares.
Tuesday 11 a.m. – 5691 views, 204 shares.
Wednesday 5 p.m. – 6200 views, 218 shares.
Thursday 10 a.m. – 6585 views, 234 shares. We also got 74 new Likes on the page.
I’m calling that a successful campaign and the best part is – it was free! But, did it transfer into sales?
It took a minute of lag time, but it did transfer into sales. Sunday and Monday saw sales increase by 15 per day. Tuesday and Wednesday sales increased by 20 per day. Thursday sales increased by 25. Strangely, the individual books did not increase by much, but the trilogy, containing all three books in the series, is where we saw most of the sales, so you can multiply those above numbers by 3 if you’re counting actual books. These are hardly the numbers the books sold when they first came out, but free marketing is free, so I’ll take ’em!
Note: It helps to have an established book page or author page. I didn’t start from scratch. It also helps that my demographic for that book is the state where Stuckey’s Bridge is located, population 2.9 million. The people there already know the legend and are excited to find out anything new about the bridge.
Regardless, it’s worth uploading your video to Facebook. You won’t get the views logged onto Youtube, but when all is said and done, I’d rather have sales. If you’re curious about the video, here it is…embedded from Youtube…
UPDATE FRIDAY, JAN 23, 2015
21,480 people reached, 6,980 video views, 6,019 unique views
851 LIKES, COMMENTS & SHARES
456 Likes: 60 On Post, 396 On Shares
144 Comments: 6 On Post, 138 On Shares
251 Shares: 244 On Post, 7 On Shares
UPDATE FRIDAY, FEB 13, 2015
29,328 people reached. 11, 079 video views, 8,782 unique views
I just finished “The Black Thread” by Margaret Muir. I enjoyed it so much, I’m now reading another of Ms. Muir’s books, “Sea Dust.”
Honestly, I got this book for free through one of her promotions quite a while back, and it’s been sitting in my Kindle collecting dust. Now, I feel bad that it took me so long to get to it.
It is a story of a young girl named Amy Dodd living in England in the late 1800s. Amy had disillusion of grandeur about who and what her absentee father was, and when she found out the truth about the man, it nearly destroyed her. Luckily, she had the strength to change her situation and by the end of the story, you feel quite happy that her reality wasn’t exactly her reality. On the negative side, I found the descriptions of the landscapes and scenes a bit wordy for my taste, and I caught myself skipping over a large amount of paragraphs just to get back to the story. I tend to be on the impatient side, so that’s not a criticism of her writing in the least, only of my personality. On the positive side, it was a really, really good story with a great plot twist. I read the book in one sitting and would recommend it to anyone as a rainy-day read. You’ll find yourself rooting for poor Amy and cheering at the end.
One of my favorite authors, PC Zick (photo), nominated me to share with you my current Work in Progress. Check out Patricia’s WiP on her blog HERE and her books on Amazon HERE.
Anna Belfrage! Anna (photo) is an amazingly talented writer responsible for the eight-book “Graham Saga.” Check out her blog HERE and her books on Amazon HERE.
Lori Crane 