Feature & Follow #121

Q: What is a deal breaker for you in a book? For example, do you abhor love triangles? Or can’t deal with bad editing?

A: Deal Breakers? Poor grammar, little to no editing, badly disguised porn called erotica, horrible dialogue, over description of everything, but worst is wide open endings.  Honestly I like a book to end. It can lead to another book with clues of things to come, but whatever the premise is of that book just needs to be fulfilled in that book.

RULES

To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

• (Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
• (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers
• Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
• Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say “hi” in your comments and that they are now following you.
• If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn’t have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
• Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don’t just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don’t say “HI”
• If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love…and the followers
• If you’re new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Happy Follow Friday! 

Accidental Mates Draco by Brenda Steele

Ok so I thought I would broaden my horizons and read some non-gay erotica/romance/whatever.  I was looking for something with shapeshifters and I really do like dragons so I thought maybe....

wrong.

I'm not really sure how I should go about doing a review.  I've been told I need practice.  So here goes:

I didn't like it.  The plot was simplistic and predictable, the characters were... just blah.  The sex scenes were ok, but this was so far out of my comfort zone I think I might have been scarred.

I will attempt other books in this genre though, and I might even attempt another one by this author... I mean it could have been a fluke -- right?

My apologies to the author, it wasn't you... I hope.

Q: What writing device or trick most irritates you when reading a book? For example, if an author employs an omnipotent narrator that is sometimes considered bad form.

I have several actually but I think the worst is the Deus ex Mechina. Especially when it doesn't even seem plausible or related to the characters/plot/anything in any way whatsoever.

Second on the list... Mary Sue / Gary Stu.  Sometimes the author does not realize they are doing this but when the READER picks up on it... it's bad.

RULES

To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. (Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
2. (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say "hi" in your comments and that they are now following you.
5. If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn't have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
6. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
7. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
8. If you're new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Editing

I hate editing.

There I said it.  It is out there and on the web.  

There are lots of reasons I hate to edit, most of them have to do with the fact I write "thin" then have to thicken things up.  My first rewrite usually causes the manuscript to double in words.

Which brings me to the one I'm working on.   It's a Vega-5 story that will be coming to you sometime next quarter.  The first draft was only 11k words, the second draft -- 20k.  Now I'm on the final eleven pages of the final edit (gads please let this be the last one) and it's almost up to 24k.  Max allowed 25k.  There are 11 pages....

I hate editing. 

I got Featured!

ok it's just on Cia's blog.....  but I got featured.

Cia is my favorite wench in case you've not figured that out yet and she's really helping me out getting started.  I do appreciate that. A lot.

Feature and Follow #1

You all can blame this one on Cia too!

Q: When you step out of your USUAL genre what do you like to read? Best books in that genre?

I have a usual genre, damn, glad someone told me. Oddly, what I will go to if nothing is available in the genres I like is fall back on some comfort books. I love Richard Bach. I read children's stories just for the joy of it.  Picking the best books is hard for me. I'm not sure I can do it.  There is only the best of right now, the next one might be better.

Gain Book Blog Followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers — but you have to know — the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

RULES

To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

• (Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
• (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers
• Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
• Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say “hi” in your comments and that they are now following you.
• If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn’t have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
• Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don’t just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don’t say “HI”
• If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love…and the followers
• If you’re new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Happy Follow Friday!

This is a Blog Hop!

Self-Marketing

Apparently I’m supposed to do this on a regular basis to garner readership and thus, well, readers. However I never know what to write about and then I think everything I’ve written is stupid. Then I noticed a trend. When I get a writing prompt I never know what to write about and I think the stories are stupid, however, they always seem to go over well (at least among my test group).

So I have decided to treat this blog like well, a prompt. Hopefully I’ll have similar results.

So today’s prompt... I mean topic... my beginning forays into self-marketing my self-published book.



I honestly got up one morning and decided I’m publishing today. I contacted my friend Alicia who knew it was going to happen one day and told her today was the day. She was like ‘you need to pre-sell the book’. Well I know me and I knew if I didn’t get it ‘out there’ by bed time it wasn’t going out. I decided on smashwords because it was supposed to be easiest. Someone lied. Took about half a dozen tries, but the job got done. Applied for premium, got the isbn, and “published”.

Now what?

Holy cow if I only knew!

This! is what, and joining about fifty new sites like goodreads and ARe as an author or just to promote (and be promoted to). I keep thinking – I need a marketing person! Then I reminded myself – you SELF-PUBLISHED! -- so you SELF-PROMOTE.

Well, then I decided to take matters into my own hands and plastered the town.... literally. Every book store, library, and gay bar within about 30 miles from my house got a flyer with the banner, the blurb, and where to buy it... all with the ‘it’s a local author’ pitch. Even hit a few coffee bars – even a self-marketing self-published author gets thirsty.... really thirsty... there are a lot of coffee bars with local news boards. So there I was high on caffine and sugar when I noticed that I have this blogger site that people supposedly come look at, and all these sites I’ve joined, and this old webpage which is really needing a facelift and I’m thinking.... THAT gets good billing on google. So I redo the themes on both sites to match as much as possible and figure out that the wordpress blog (that I rarely ever use) has a shopping cart.... I configure that and low and behold I have a wordpress/blogger mashup that has TWO blogs and a shopping cart.... so I get to thinking...

If I can get this marketing thing under control, I just might not need smashwords next time around because there’s a program for that!

Read, Write, Review
Lugh.

Lugh's Anthology of Anthology Stories is now available for free. If you would like a signed copy you can get one for a small donation.

whoooo

it's been a busy few days!

You can now read and write reviews for Catara on Goodreads and purchase it on All Romance E-books.  I hope you do,  I really want to know what all you are thinking.

I'd also like to give a shout out and thank you to the first couple purchasers of my book.  You know who you are.  Thank you -- you wonderful person you.

Amazon itself will also be carrying this title.... soon.

And if I can get my ducks in a row you should be seeing more in the near future.

Remember --

Read, Write, Review!!!!

"Catara" is for sale!

Well I did it.   Catara is officially for sale.

Catara - A Story of the Gefaradan

Fiction » Fantasy » General
Fiction » Science fiction » General

By Lugh MacFey
$1.99 Rating: Not yet rated.
Published: Oct. 09, 2012
Words: 23811 (approximate)
Language: English

Short description

It was supposed to be a simple shopping trip, just Math and his mother. However, nothing is ever simple for Danyl’s Idenk. Katu would do anything to avoid joining the temple, and has. Then an off-worlder shows up and the temple doesn't seem like such a bad choice after all.

I'll put it all pretty when I figure that out.

Freebies

My three best net-friends (also known as betas and editor) have doused me with self confidence (we hope) and are dragging me out of the second closet of my life (guess the first).  Although I think this one is harder. Readers are more judgemental... parents you just don't have to speak to for twenty years.

Over the next few days I'll be putting up a few freebies.  I hope you like them.

Read! Write! Review!
Lugh

Breaking the Ice

They always say the first time doing anything is the hardest, breaking the ice and all. So, here is my ice breaker:


About the Author

Lugh

loo - noun
1. an adult humanoid who lives on the east coast of Turtle Island with its spawn, two doggerals, and a pair of felinish creatures. It can most commonly be found haunting the internet, most especially the chat room of gayauthors.org, or tip-tapping on the keyboard which is permanently attached to the lazy boy chair arm
2. hunter of plot slugs
3. muse-slayer extraordinaire
4. primary consumer of books and tea
5. to trap -- lure with chocolate covered men