Guest Blogger: The Controversial Themes behind EQUITY of EVIL by Rudy A. Mazzocchi

The Controversial Themes behind EQUITY of EVIL

By Rudy A. Mazzocchi

We’ve all been impacted by movies like Blood Diamond (the 2006 political thriller written by Charles Leavitt) which revealed the atrocities of the diamond industry and exposed the exploitation of humanity for the sake of profit and personal gain. There are many unfortunate examples of such inhumanities, the worst of which includes both biblical and modern slavery.

EQUITY of EVIL exposes similar atrocities associated with the illicit black market of human organ trafficking. It outlines a twisted scheme by a wealthy foreign syndicate to manipulate key people and companies in order to monopolize this growing multi-billion dollar market. Rather than compete with limited legitimate sources that are supported by governments, institutions, or foundations that solicit organ donations, or illegal means that include ‘assassinations for organs’, extraction of organs from living or deceased prisoners, or ‘cash for organs’ in the black market, this powerful syndicate funds the harvesting and growing of human organs from aborted fetuses.

Based on true events, EQUITY of EVIL captures the science and medical procedures capable of supporting this business thesis, and includes real-life characters that are manipulated or influenced by their own personal greed or self-interest. Protagonists in the story eventually learn that they are but pawns in a global chess-game, slaves to faceless masters, who attempt to right their wrongs. The Antagonists are blinded by their empathy and greed, unmoved by their atrocities to their fellow man, simply focused on the ‘brass ring’ and their ultimate goals. The clash between the two provide a rollercoaster ride for the reader, as they explore and experience various perspectives that may cause them to consider their own political, ethical and moral viewpoints.

As an author of such a novel, my goal was to simply reveal some of the exciting, but often scary, new medical innovations that are on the horizon—new innovations that will surely force us to think about how we are going to deal with new political and ethical issues as a global society. I also hope that readers will relate to many of the main characters, many of whom attempt to do the right things for the right reasons. As in our own lives, many of us stumble and recover, being stronger for the experience, while others lose themselves and barely survive.

I intend to maintain such a theme in a trilogy called “The EQUITY Series” in which other bold new technologies are brought to light only to be exploited by evil individuals and/or companies for the sake of profit. Stay tuned!

Rudy A. Mazzocchiis best known as a medical device and biotechnology entrepreneur, inventor, and angel investor, with a history of starting new technology ventures throughout the U.S. and Europe. He’s been privileged to have the opportunity to see the newest innovations in healthcare and work with some of the most brilliant researchers, scientists and physicians in the industry.

Authoring more than 50 patents, he has helped pioneer new companies involved in cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, neurosurgery and even embryonic stem-cell development. Through these efforts, he has become the recipient of many technology and business awards, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Healthcare and the Businessman of the Year Award.

Combining these experiences and opportunities, with thousands of hours of travel and long evenings in hotel rooms, he found the initiative to start writing a collection of medical thrillers based on true events, the first of which is entitled EQUITY of EVIL.

You can visit his website at www.rudymazzocchi.com.

Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAYkQEQBnLk

Guest Blogger: Coyotes on the Ranch by Susan Spence

Who dreams of the wild wild west?  Everyone!  We have a fantastic author here with us today by the name of Susan Spence.  Susan is the author of the historical fiction, A Story of the West.

Coyotes on the Ranch

By Susan Spence

One thing we live with in rural Montana is coyotes. For many they are a plague. In fact ranchers, as well as the government, have spent a lot of time and money attempting to eradicate them. I know they can cause problems, but my husband and I make every effort to get along with them.

There was a book that came out a few years ago called Don Coyote. It was written by a rancher in Oregon who was upset with the government’s poison control program. Did you know that they used to fly airplanes over both public and private land spreading poison pellets? Dayton Hyde, the author of Don Coyote, described how afterwards, he would ride through the forest and it would be completely silent, the ground littered with dead birds and other animals. He decided there had to be a better way to deal with coyotes and began studying them and even protecting the ones on his ranch.

If we caught one going after our animals, my husband wouldn’t hesitate to kill it, but the fact it’s there doesn’t mean an automatic death sentence. One thing we realize is that despite all efforts to remove them, they are still around. Also, most of them don’t cause problems. Many of them avoid humans and livestock and those are the ones we want around. If we killed them just for being there, who knows if the next one to move in wouldn’t become a nuisance.

A few times we’ve seen coyotes and foxes from the house, which is too close, as we don’t want them coming around the barnyard where our chickens and other animals roam freely. In those cases, my husband quickly pulls out the rifle, which completely freaks out our dogs. He then shoots towards, but not at them. When they hear the shot and the bullet raises a tiny poof of dust as it skips behind them, they get the message and are gone in a flash.

We don’t worry about them around the calves because our cows are excellent mothers. One day I was coming up the drive and a coyote crossed ahead of me, trotting in the direction of our cattle. I watched as the mother cows immediately went into defensive mode, positioning themselves around the calves. The coyote wouldn’t have stood a chance against them, but was just passing through anyway.

When an animal dies on our place, we haul it off a ways and let coyotes, as well as foxes, eat the carcass. We’ve disposed of chickens, cattle and goats this way. Most would think we are asking for trouble, believing our actions will draw undesirable animal species in. We see it differently. As Dayton Hyde pointed out, a well-fed predator is less likely to cause trouble than a hungry one. So they are more than welcome to have what we don’t use.

Of course we don’t take anything for granted. Part of our dogs’ job description is to keep coyotes respectable and to chase off any that come close.

So far this approach has worked, and there’s no reason to think that it won’t continue working. We believe we can share our land with others and not have to worry about anything causing trouble if we simply set a few boundaries.

Susan Spence has always been intrigued with life in the west in the 1880s. She researched historical accounts and first-person narratives as she prepared to write A Story of the West. A lifelong resident of the west, she currently lives in Montana on an old sheep shearing station with lots of furry critters and one partially furry critter. This is her first novel, and she is busily working on a sequel due out in late spring. You can visit her website at www.writing-ranch.com.

The Inspiration for Charlie: A Love Story by Barbara Lampert

The Inspiration for Charlie: A Love Story

By Barbara Lampert, author of Charlie: A Love Story

Charlie’s the kind of dog I dreamed about when I was a kid. The dog who would always be happy to see me, my best friend in the world, the dog I could tell all my secrets to, my very loyal confidante, who would love me more than anyone, no matter what.

Charlie came into my life when he was thirteen weeks old and I was grown up. But he was that dog of my dreams. From the moment I got him, I adored him. For his whole life, Charlie and I were attached at the hip.

Here’s how Charlie’s story came about:

For several years, I’d been keeping a gardening journal while landscaping our property in Malibu on almost an acre of land, and occasionally I would write about Charlie in my journal. But when he turned eleven years old and started having some health problems, within a short period of time my journal entries became more and more about him and less and less about gardening.

I was amazed at how Charlie dealt with his health problems.  He seemed to have a very deep understanding of what was going on, and just about nothing got him down. He was both determined and joyful. Indomitable, and so wise. He was inspiring.

Even though I wanted to write about him mostly in the present, I couldn’t help thinking about him as a puppy. So I found myself writing about him when he was younger, too. I just wanted to be with him, think about him, and write about him. I knew that our time was limited.

Then in 2003, my husband David and I decided to take Charlie and Barney (our other Golden Retriever at the time) to San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito for five days, to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary.   One evening while we were sitting on the deck of our cottage, I read David some of my journal entries having to do with Charlie. David said it sounded as if I had the makings of a book.  The more I thought about that, the more I agreed. So I pulled out all the entries that had to do with Charlie to look at them more closely.

At first I was hesitant to turn my journal into a book, because the writing was so personal and intimate, and because, being such a private person as well as a psychotherapist, I didn’t know if I’d be comfortable doing that.  But my overriding thought then was that it would be Charlie’s story, that not only did I want to pay tribute to this magnificent dog, but also I felt that the way he handled life could be an inspiration to others, just as it was to me.

I knew that Charlie was not only a once-in-a-lifetime dog but also a once-in-a-lifetime being. And that ours was a once-in-a-lifetime relationship. I needed to write about him, and his story needed to be told.

Barbara Lampert is a Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in relationships. She’s been in private practice in Brentwood, California for over twenty years. She considers her work a calling and loves what she does. She has a doctorate in medical sociology and two master’s degrees – one in psychology and one in sociology. Barbara has adored dogs her whole life. They’re her passion! She notes that for a lot of people, their dogs are their best friends. She loves helping people know that’s ok – that a soul-satisfying relationship may be found with any being and needs to be treasured. Besides her love of dogs, Barbara is an avid gardener and finds herself gardening in much of her spare time. She sees her garden as a work of art. She loves being in nature – the miracle of growth, the ever-changing landscape, its beauty. Today Barbara lives happily in Malibu, California with her husband David (married twenty-eight years!) and their six-year-old Golden Retriever, Harry. Barbara hopes that Charlie: A Love Story will be a tribute not only to a magnificent dog but to all dogs everywhere. You can visit her website at www.charliealovestory.com.

Guest Post: Writing What You Don’t Know by Sheila Dalton

If you’re a writer, I’m sure you’ve heard the advice “Write what you know”. As advice goes, it’s not bad, but what do you do when you venture into areas you don’t know? This can easily happen, even if we start with material that draws on our own experiences.

For instance, my novel, The Girl in the Box, originated with a trip I took to Central America back in the seventies. The violent Civil War between the government and the guerrillas was underway, and my girlfriend and I saw things that shocked and disturbed us. For instance, when riding on the second-class buses, we were stopped by government soldiers. The fear in the eyes of the Maya was obvious, and we wondered what was going on. The soldiers took many of the male passengers away, and these men did not return. We learned later they had been killed or taken prisoner.

So we knew something of what was going on, but when I began to write my book, I quickly found  I needed to include scenes I had never personally experienced.  Part of the novel takes place in Guatemala during the Civil War, where a doctor discovers a mute Mayan girl held in captivity in the rainforest.

I was aware that the imagined sections could sound false. What to do? The need for research was obvious. I read everything I could get my hands on about the Civil War and its aftermath; I read up on the Maya.  Then, when I wrote key scenes, I imagined myself into them by recalling times I had felt afraid or threatened, whatever was needed for the work.

From what I understand, this process is similar to what Method Actors are taught. You try to feel your way into a character or situation you have not experienced by using “what you know” in a different way – you draw on your life experience as a human being. Most of us have felt a wide gamut of emotions; we have also seen others in the throes of strong feelings.

Sometimes, I talked out loud to myself, taking on the role of my character.  I found this helped me quite a lot. I just had to be careful I was alone, so my family didn’t question my sanity!

The last step, in some cases, was to have somebody read the scene and tell me if they thought I’d got it right. I tried to find people who had been in situations similar to the ones I was writing, but that wasn’t always possible. However, I did manage to connect with someone who had lived in Guatemala during the strife, and a lawyer who had dealt with refugee applicants to Canada at that time. It all helped.

It was not a perfect solution, but I because I believe writers have strong imaginations, I think it is entirely possible to write credible scenes you have never experienced yourself.

***

Sheila Dalton has written three picture books for children, a YA mystery,  two novels for adults, a collection of adult poetry, and many non-fiction works for children.  You can read more about Sheila and her books at her website:

http://sheila-anne-dalton.com

Five Things I Learned About My Book After It Was Published

Five Things I Learned About My Book After It Was Published

By Debra Brenegan

#1.  The font is too small!  Holy cow, where is my microscope?  This is something I didn’t even think to ask about.  When I got my galleys, with the very small print, I assumed the print would be bigger in the final edition.  Now, why did I assume that?  I have no idea.  J

#2.  The four blurbs I procured look fantastic on the back cover.  I was told that three blurbs would probably be enough, and that I could get a fourth one if I wanted to – boy, oh, boy I am so glad I got the fourth one.  It makes the back cover so perfectly full of accolades.  Yay.

#3.  On the other hand, there is too much white space on the inside book jacket where my bio is.  If I would have known exactly how much space the publisher allocated to my bio, I would have written a lot more.  I gave them my pared-down bio instead of my fleshed-out one.  Live and learn.

#4.  I adore my book cover.  This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me.  The designers at SUNY did a great job conceptualizing Shame the Devil and we all loved what they did from moment one.

#5.  Although I am eternally grateful to my husband for taking the photo of me that is on the book jacket by my bio, I now wish I would have gotten some professional photos taken, too.  Not that the photo I have isn’t good – it is . . . and I love it – but it would have been nice to have one photo for the book jacket and then, perhaps, a couple of other photos for all of the rest of the publicity.  I’m using the same photo for everything and I am getting a little tired of it.

Debra Brenegan grew up in the Milwaukee area and graduated with a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked as a journalist and taught at Milwaukee Area Technical College before beginning her graduate work. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing from The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she also taught. She teaches English and Women’s Studies at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. For her fiction, she has received a Ragdale residency and was a recent finalist for the John Gardner Memorial Fiction Prize, The Cincinnati Review’s Schiff Prose Prize, and the Crab Creek Review Fiction Prize. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Calyx, Tampa Review, Natural Bridge, The Laurel Review, RE:AL, The Southern Women’s Review, The Cimarron Review, Milwaukee Magazine, Phoebe, and other publications. Debra Brenegan’s novel, Shame the Devil, is a historical account of nineteenth-century American writer Fanny Fern (SUNY Press, Excelsior Editions). She is currently working on another novel, set in Missouri, and on a short story collection. During the school year, Debra lives in a 130-year-old house in Fulton with her husband, Steve, and their elderly cat. They spend summers and school breaks in their native Milwaukee. When not teaching, writing, spending time with family or driving back and forth to Wisconsin, Debra enjoys cooking, gardening, reading and traveling. You can visit her website at www.debrabrenegan.com or visit her at Twitter at www.twitter.com/dbrenegan or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/#!/debra.brenegan; https://www.facebook.com/#!/shame.the.devil.book.

 

Lousy Gigs Make for Good Stories by Joseph Garraty

Lousy Gigs Make for Good Stories

By Joseph Garraty

Like one of the main characters in my novel, Voice, I play guitar in a local rock band. Also like that character, I’ve played a lot of crappy gigs. The similarity ends there—I’m generally a nice guy, and Stephanie Case is, well, neither of those things, and that’s just for starters. But the lousy gigs? That’s something that ties all rock musicians together. Every time I meet a new musician, we get to trade horror stories. A few examples:

1. I played a venue one time where the roof leaked. That’s not so bad, huh? Maybe it wouldn’t have been, if I hadn’t been standing in a puddle of water with an electrical cable running from the guitar I was holding to a 100-watt amplifier—which, I noted with horror about halfway through the show, was also standing in a puddle of water.

2. My band showed up to do a soundcheck at one venue, only to discover that the sound guy was in jail. I admit, that was so ridiculous it was kind of funny, and an episode inspired by that actually made it into Voice.

3. When one of my bands was just starting out, we got thrown out of a venue for not bringing enough people to the show. I’d never had that happen before (it was completely humiliating), but some of my friends later told me it was kind of normal at this particular establishment. The guy who ran it, Big Lou, bore a remarkable similarity in disposition and appearance to Jabba the Hutt, and he’d attained a reputation for being a complete jerk to most of the local musicians.

4. Three vocalists, one mic. Obnoxious? You bet. Funny to watch? Oh yeah. We fell all over each other trying to get to and from that mic stand. The bits with three-part harmony were particularly entertaining. I’m lucky I didn’t accidentally club someone to death with the headstock of my guitar.

That barely scratches the surface. I’ve also had to turn away a boatload of drug pushers, deal with an astonishing variety of equipment failure (nothing like screwing around with a bass amp that won’t work when you’re twenty minutes into the set you’re supposed to be playing), fight with sound guys that took an immediate dislike to me or somebody else in the band, and the list goes on and on. I’ve put on transcendent performances to empty rooms and mediocre ones to packed houses, and (occasionally) vice versa.

What does any of this have to do with writing? Atmosphere. Vibe. Voice, if you will. Verisimilitude. From the standpoint of research, Voice was one of the easiest things I’ve ever written, because I’ve experienced so much of that scene. And for me, there are few tableaus quite as evocative as the stage at a sleazy bar two minutes before showtime. The gear is set up, the lights are down, there’s maybe a half a dozen people nursing their drinks and shooting glances toward the stage, wondering what they’re in for. Just offstage, the band is tuning up.

And if I’m there, I’m grinning like a fool—because in these dark, out-of-the-way places, despite the grime and the horrifying bathroom, despite the drunk who won’t stop pawing you and the sound guy who turns you up until you feed back like crazy or turns you down until you can’t hear anything, and despite the fact that you’re about to bust your ass for two hours for six bucks, you never know when something magic might happen.

I guess I do have something else in common with Stephanie Case. We’re both made to play seedy dives.

I’m cool with that.

Joseph Garraty is an author of dark fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He has worked as a construction worker, rocket test engineer, environmental consultant, technical writer, and deadbeat musician. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

His latest book is the horror novel, Voice.

You can visit his website at www.josephgarraty.com.

Connect with Joseph at Twitter at www.twitter.com/JosephGarraty.

Humor Me (And Watch It, I’m Sober) by Michael Reilly

Humor Me (And Watch It, I’m Sober)

By Michael Reilly

Humor is always dangerous. Whether you are attempting it in a social setting or through writing, or acting, or whatever, it has a high risk of failure. Like the health care plan: a high risk of failure (that’s not supposed to be funny).

 

I’ve never really considered myself a funny person. I was definitely not a class clown. In fact, I think most of my feeble attempts to be a class clown when I was little, wound up with no laughs and long visits to the principal’s office (real class clowns never get caught, by the way). As I grew up, I realized it was always best to leave the joke telling to those raging extroverts who seemed to be able to make people howl just by stepping into the room.  I became used to hanging in the back, quietly.

 

But my mind has never been quiet. I’ve always enjoyed finding the irony or humor in things, even if it meant keeping the laughs to myself. I was hesitant to ever convey my observations through my writing, for the same fear that I’ve always hesitated to entertain a crowd of people. High risk of failure. At least in a crowd of people, your efforts can be quickly dismissed and forgotten about, particularly if half the group is smashed. Heck, they might even laugh if they’re smashed. But in writing, those attempts don’t die away quickly. They’re right there on a page for posterity, long after you die away. Which has led me to remember that we are all mortal, no one’s perfect, and only the fearless get to live life now instead of waiting for it to happen some other day. To paraphrase Goethe: “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

 

So when I decided to write a novel about obsessive parents, I decided to be bold and find the humor in it. I realized my chance for success might have been higher if I wrote a macabre tale, full of vampires and wizards, and stuff like that, and perhaps if I threw in as many ghastly scenes as I could. How about one where a despondent teenager stabs his obsessive father 117 times on the way to a golf course where the kid’s supposed to hit practice shots for five hours straight for the eighty-second day in a row, while the fat old man sits drunk in a folding chair and screams opprobrium over the kid’s weak follow-through? Nah, not for me.

 

I’d go with the higher risk of failure and hope that it would more aptly convey my message. Ultimately in poking fun at helicopter parents, or just plain over-eagerness, which we all fall victim to, I hoped to provoke the readers to realize that our kids often have as much to teach us as we have to teach them. We are so inclined to give, give, give, for fear that our kids will not measure up in such a competitive world, that we wind up disillusioned and feeling unappreciated. And then no one’s happy.

 

In my recently released novel, Fresh Heir, the main character, Doug Shoop falls into this trap as he attempts to catapult his genius son, Jamie, to stardom. As I wrote the novel, and attempted to keep it humorous and satirical, I tried to stick to three rules:

 

1. Look for things people can relate to: When it comes to parenting, there’s a bevy of material we can all relate to. Sometimes it feels like we are so alone in our struggles, it’s such a relief when we realize we are not alone. One common parenting theme I try to play up quite a bit is the struggle to communicate, particularly with teenagers. The father, Doug, is constantly seeking verbal affirmation from his son, and usually only gets a grunt or shrug of the shoulders in response. Sound familiar? With that said, there were definitely some more arcane jokes in my story, but with Google always just a click away, it’s safe to assume people can look things up. Just don’t make them Google stuff on every page of your book.

 

1. Play off of extreme contrasts: All parents know that life through their eyes is quite a contrast to those adults without kids. One of my favorite scenes in Fresh Heir is when Doug and his family are visiting his ex-wife and her new husband. The new husband does not have children, he is very wealthy and quite anal. The funny scene takes place during dinner, a time at which most parents have resigned themselves to the fact that enough food will likely fall on the floor to fill up even the most ravenous dog. But this rich guy doesn’t have a dog. He does, however, have a contraption that is intended for kids to wear under their chin, to catch all the food that fails to make it where it’s supposed to go. I have never actually seen one of these things in real life, but I do think a pretty good living could be made selling them on the Internet.

 

1. Scale it back: When you are writing satire, or just trying to set a light and humorous tone, I believe there is a tendency to go overboard. You get on a roll, maybe even laughing out loud at your spectacular efforts. Well, that’s when it’s time to let it simmer and then re-write. Let’s face it, editing your own work is a crucial task for any author. But this is particularly true for writing humor. I tossed quite a bit of material into the proverbial scrap bin when I realized it was just plain stupid. After all, my boldness has limits…and I’m not ready to die yet.

 

I would be interested to know people’s thoughts about reading and/or writing satire and humor. Do you like it? Who are your favorite “funny” authors? Oh, and more importantly, what about being a parent drives you nuts? Come on…let’s see who can be funniest.

 

Michael Reilly is a writer and entrepreneur. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. His first published novel, Fresh Heir, was released in May 2011. He is also founder and chief executive officer of FitDivs Inc, a company that promotes and rewards healthy living. Michael resides with his wife and four children in Charlottesville, VA.

You can visit his website at www.freshheirnovel.com or connect with him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Fresh-Heir/168240473246308.

 

 

10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours

10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours

By Dorothy Thompson, CEO & Founder of Pump Up Your Book

By now, most authors know what virtual book tours are or at least have heard of them. They’re that wonderful marketing tool that should be a must have in every new book’s campaign. With each new book I write, I’m making a game plan before the book is even published and a virtual book tour is the first promotional venue on that list.

While most of us know what they are, there are still a few new authors who might have heard of them but have no idea what they involve. I give you my top 10 things you need to know about virtual book tours so that you will know what to expect.

1. Virtual book tours are the BEST way to get the MOST online exposure for your book. Not only are you presenting your book and yourself to thousands of people, all of your interviews, guest posts and reviews are archived which means months down the road, you’re still selling your book because of that one tour.
2. Virtual book tours ARE a lot of work. Not only are you searching for the perfect blogs to host you, you are acting as the middle man between you and the blogger unless you are using a paid service such as Pump Up Your Book who will do all the work for you. Even if you do sign up with Pump Up Your Book, there is still lots of work to do completing assignments – filling out interviews and writing guest posts unless you choose an all review tour. Even though it requires a little bit of your time to fill out interviews and write guest posts, it’s well worth it.
3. You will learn more about your book than you ever did. I had an author tell me that through the interviews and guest posts she had to complete, she never learned so much about her book which caught her off guard. Now when she is interviewed on radio shows and makes television appearances, she is better prepared.
4. Virtual book tours will build up your author platform. No matter if you’re a fiction author or a nonfiction author, virtual book tours will build up your author platform using your key search words.
5. Your reviews are guaranteed. Offline publicists while they mean well do it all wrong. They query a book blogger, make arrangements to send the book, then that’s where it stops. The review is not a guaranteed thing. The reviewer can post the review anytime they see fit. With virtual book tours, your review is guaranteed on a certain date unless the reviewer jumps ship which rarely happens. I had an author tell me she signed up with an offline publicist who sent out many books and only one or two reviewers actually came through for them. That was money loss for the author. Books don’t come cheap these days so coming up with a date you and the reviewer can agree upon guarantees that review will be a given thing.
6. Many reviewers now take ebooks which save you money. Thank goodness someone was smart enough to invent a device that automatically loads a book in a few seconds (no waiting to go to the book store anymore my friend) and makes it fun to read. When Amazon lowered their price of the Kindle, sales soared and book lovers started talking about getting one. What that means is that it opened up a wonderful way to get these books to the book reviewers quickly and less expensively. Have you noticed how much books are and how much it takes to ship them? Not saying all reviewers will take ebooks, but as time goes on, most will have an e-reader and, as a matter of fact, will prefer an ebook.
7. More website hits, more blog hits, more Twitter hits and more Facebook Fan Page hits. All authors should have a website or blog and accounts at Twitter and Facebook. No matter if you think they’re all a waste of time. A virtual book tour will definitely give you more hits at all places as long as your links are in your bio.
8. Going on a virtual book tour raises your Alexa rankings. What is Alexa? Alexa measures how well you are doing in the search engines. By going on a virtual book tour, and including interviews and guest posts during that tour, your website and blog links are included in every bio (or should be!). Those are incoming links which Alexa uses to measure your ranking. The more your website or blog link shows up on other sites, the more valuable your site is to them and thus, your rankings soar.
9. You will learn how to sell your book through media exposure. Not all authors take advantage of their interviews and guest posts by gearing them toward their audience, thus luring them to their book and/or website/blog. I’ve had many authors on tour and the ones who really take the time to make their interviews and guest posts effective selling tools are the ones who profit the most. The key thing here is to make your audience curious. One liners in the case of interviews may not cut it. Of course there are only so many ways you can answer “What’s your book about?” but take your time and get your audience’s curiosity peaked so that they do make your way over to your website or your book’s buying link.
10. Virtual book tours teach you how to connect well with others. There is no better way to learn how to network. All these wonderful book bloggers who agree to host you are your new friends in your extended network and they will be there for you the next time you have a book to promote (unless they completely hated it of course). You’ll also learn how to use the social networks effectively as you study how to get people over to your stops by persuasive wording. Remember to talk to your audience, not at them.

There you have it. 10 reasons I feel you need to know about virtual book tours in a nutshell. If you have a tour coordinator as opposed to setting one up yourself, she will walk you through it so that it will be a fun experience for all. Your book will thank you for it.

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book publicity. You can visit her website at www.PumpUpYourBook.com or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pumpupyourbook and Facebook at www.facebook.com/pumpupyourbook.

Guest Blogger: Lilian Duval gives insights on how to get published

We have a wonderful guest today.  Lilian Duval, author of You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner, is her to tell us how she got published.  Enjoy!

You Never Know is the title of my novel, just published in March, 2011, and it’s a fitting description for what I’ve been through in my publishing adventure!

Getting You Never Know published started before one word of the book was written. In 2009, I began marketing my collection of short fiction, Random Acts of Kindness, comprising seven short stories and a novella. Four of the stories had been published in magazines, so I thought I had a pretty good chance.

Using AgentQuery.com, I made a list of 217 literary agents, most of them in New York, and set about writing to them exactly as per their instructions. Some wanted query letters only; some wanted the first chapter; in my case, the first story in the collection. Some wanted to be contacted by e-mail only; others wanted postal mail only. Many of them threatened that if you dared to contact them the wrong way, your query would be deleted or recycled!

Over the course of a full year, seven of these agents requested full or partial submissions. Again, I responded exactly as they specified. Two of these very seriously considered publishing my book. They called me on the phone, they sent me frequent e-mail messages, and so on.

After a few months of this nerve-wracking attention, both of these agents declared that, in the current economic climate, a short-story collection is too difficult to sell. Would I please, therefore, write a novel and get back to them?

Okay. So I did. Fourteen months later, I had a completely finished novel, You Never Know, the engaging chronicle of a man who wins the Mega-Millions lottery halfway through the book, and then spends years adjusting to his good fortune. Early reviewers and readers from all walks of life loved it—men as well as women, as there’s a male protagonist.

What struck me was what each person said, independently: “I was immediately drawn in by the story and identified completely with Tobias (main character). I finished the book in two days and could not put it down.”

Back I went to the two very interested agents. After dragging me along for a few months, they both said something like they couldn’t get involved with the characters and didn’t feel passionate enough about the project to take it on.

Okay. So I went back to my long list of 217 agents and queried all of them. Within the next year, I had eight requests for full or partial submissions. Again, I followed all their specific guidelines for submission. Again, they dragged me along for months. Some of them still have not responded to requested material. Sigh.

One of these agents remarked, after reading the first chapter, which she requested, that I hadn’t gone into depth in characterization. Really! The first chapter is only the exposition! The next 24 chapters reveal everything. But she didn’t stay around long enough to find out.

A year after finishing the novel, I decided not to wait any longer. I’d heard from a literary publicist that Wheatmark, Inc. is better than most self-publishing companies in that the final product is truly professionally prepared, and I’ll have to agree. Wheatmark took some time to evaluate and accept my manuscript. The entire publishing process took seven months, which was longer than I’d expected, but the book is beautifully put together.

Now my major challenge is marketing, but that’s a topic for another post!

Meanwhile, my advice to authors who want to get published is: try your best to follow the traditional route through literary agents and publishers, because that will save you money on publishing and publicity. But if that fails, carefully investigate the many independent publishers out there.

Buy two books each from the companies on your final list. That’s what I did, and I’m very glad, because some of the books coming from these publishers are substandard. But the reputable firms, like Wheatmark, create books that are indistinguishable from those printed by big traditional publishing houses.

If your independent publisher provides an editor, work closely with that person on goof-proofing your manuscript. If not, carefully choose an independent editor so that the book you write says exactly what you want it to say in good, clear writing. And good luck to all!

Lilian Duval has been fascinated with lottery winners for years, and they’re the inspiration for her intriguing novel You Never Know, which explores how an ordinary man copes with terrible luck, and later, amazing luck, when he wins the Mega-Millions lottery. Her story collection, Random Acts of Kindness, will be published in 2012.

Lilian and her husband are both survivors of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. They live in a small house in New Jersey overlooking a large county park. She’s an amateur classical guitarist and enjoys attending concerts, plays, and movies in New York City.

You can visit her website at www.lilianduval.com or follow her at Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/lilianduval and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilian-Duval/121776657899250?sk=wall.

 

Guest Blogger: Romantic Comedy Author K.L. Brady: ‘How I Landed a Literary Agent’

How I Landed a Literary Agent

By K.L. Brady

Well, landing a literary agent wasn’t easy for me. Not even close. As a matter of fact, if there’s a more circuitous route to getting an agent, I don’t know what that would be.

I wrote my first novel in the summer of 2008, entered it into a contest in January 2009 and was disqualified early on. Very early on. The next question in my mind was—now what? I had no experience in the publishing industry. I really didn’t know what a literary agent was until I started networking more frequently with author-friends. Everyone kept saying that they were querying agents to get their books into publishing houses. When I visited the sites of major publishing houses, nearly every single one said submit your work through a literary agent. So the first thing I did was begin to Google literary agents. I wanted to find out who they were and what they did.

Great. Now I’ve done all of my research, getting a literary agent will be a piece of cake, especially since I’ve written the greatest literary work since Gone with the Wind or War and Peace…or whatever great book was topping the charts at the time.

Ha! The joke was seriously on me.

I queried agent after agent after agent…and got rejection after rejection after rejection. Some agents were nice enough to provide a reason why my work was rejected. Some just shot me a barely one-line response—“Not for me.” Others sent out the form letter that began, “Dear Author/Screenwriter/Playwright.” But every single time I got a rejection with substantive comments, I went back reviewed my work carefully and revised as I saw fit. Most of the time, they were absolutely right. My work needed revision.

Over time, the notes about revisions became fewer and fewer and the requests for partials and full manuscripts increased more and more. I knew I was close. I finally sent my work to a couple of agents who I’d met at a writer’s conference, one rejected it with a note about pacing, and the other said that she was very interested and wanted to pass it around her office. A few weeks later she wrote back that while she believed in it, she couldn’t get her bosses on board, so she’d have to pass.

Well, by this time, I’d done a lot of research on self-publishing. I learned all the ins and outs of distribution and getting my books into stores and on ereaders. Eventually, I made one last revision based on another agent’s notes, a very prominent agent who represents a heap of NY Times Bestsellers, and I decided to self publish. I gave up on the traditional process and didn’t look back. I believed in my work and knew in my heart I’d done everything I could to improve it and address the issues folks had brought up.

So, I released my book in October 2009. Promoted like a crazy person. Sent my book to every book club and reviewer I could find who would accept it and started to get reviews. Not good reviews, GREAT reviews. Eventually, an executive editor from a prominent publishing house contacted me and expressed her interest in acquiring my novel.

With interested editor in hand, I actually queried a few agents I hadn’t previously queried who had worked with the editor in the past, one of whom represented two very well-known African-American bestselling female authors. I thought my work would be a good fit because he knew he market yet they write in completely different genres.

He read my novel and within a day or two offered me representation. He eventually helped me get a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster.

And that is how I landed my literary agent. It wasn’t an easy process or smooth process by any stretch of the imagination. But I persevered…and eventually I succeeded.

K. L. Brady is a D.C. native but spent a number of her formative years in the Ohio Valley. She’s an alumnus of the University of the District of Columbia and University of Maryland University College, earning a B.A. in Economics and M.B.A., respectively. She works as an analyst for a major government contracting firm and is an active real estate agent with Exit Realty by day—and writes by night (often into the wee hours of the morning). She lives just outside of D.C. in Cheltenham, Maryland, with her son and lives to eat chocolate, shop, read, and write.

Her upcoming adult novel, THE BUM MAGNET, will be published by Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books in March 2011. THE BUM MAGNET was the winner of the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Multicultural Fiction, as well as the Third Place Grand Prize Winner for Best Fiction of 2010. Moreover, the African Americans on the Move Book Club recently named her their 2011 Female Author of the Year. You can visit K.L. Brady’s website at www.authorklbrady.com.

Become friends with Karla at Twitter at  www.twitter.com/karlab27 and Facebook at www.facebook.com/karlab27.