Authors Electric

My tank is on empty. I am absolutely out of ideas, although I know the world around me is swirling with inspiration. Ideas flit by like clouds through the summer sky, morphing and dissolving into new shapes. I jot some ideas down on an cluttered notepad, hoping for cohesion to arrive and knit said concepts together into a tapestry of words. Social media posts are returning very little results in the way of sales. In these modern days of the world wide web, it is repeatedly pounded into me the importance of keeping a ‘presence’. So I post, take photos and design new posts, and post again. My posts are scattered among political comments and sensational headlines competing for a view. Yet, ‘likes’ and ‘hearts’ are not determining any improvement in sales, and it feels like a waste of energy. I see many of you have been very successful with your social media platforms. So I persist. My email inbox is full of online classes, lectures and promotions for the indie writer. “F...

Oh, the joy of being a writer! The journey of shaping a story, of bringing our characters to life and watching them dance across the pages. At times the writing is frustrating, other times it is motivating. Writing is a process custom-made for our creative brains and the visions we translate into language and words. After our manuscript is complete, we dive into the process of creating a cover design. Finding the perfect artwork or a photograph, choosing fonts and colors... This can be frustrating, but it can also be so much fun! Watching thoughts take form and materialize into the real world.  Holding our newly released novel in our hands for the first time as our creative process comes to fruition – Isn't that what really sparks our creative soul to life? At the heart of what we do as writers is CREATE. The dictionary defines 'create' as something "to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary proc...

While perusing the hallowed website of Amazon for an Edith Wharton book; ”The Age of Innocence”, I’m struck by how many different versions of the novel have been published. Some are revised additions, some have footnotes, but most all present different covers. I find it interesting that traditional publishers frequently change the covers on publications. This fact is not lost on me  – or you, I’m sure. We’re taught to ‘not judge a book by its cover’, but clearly when it comes to book marketing that is exactly what we do. Myself included. None know that fact better than the indie author, struggling to get noticed in a sea of novels. So, taking a note from traditional publishers, I gave serious consideration to the idea of new cover art to accompany a re-launch for the AMERICAN GILT novel trilogy.  That is not to say I don’t like the original covers – I do. Very much. My graphic designer went for a timeless, classy look, and I think we succeeded in achieving that goal. ...

The digital age. Love it or hate it, the digital age is here to stay. Do you remember when you got your first home computer? Your first smart phone? In the past 25 years we have moved into a time when nearly all homes have at least one computer, and cellphones are a fixture in our world. Correspondence, business, entertainment and nearly all aspects of our lives are input into our digital files.                                                         T o me, as an artist, the digital age is a double-edged sword. I first encountered this creative shift as a singer-songwriter and recording artist in the mid 1990 ’s. Music went from being recorded on magnetic tape to being stored in a digital computer file. MP3’s, a compact (and poorer) version of the original recording, made distribution, copying – and eventually pirating – very easy. I could cre...