Aspiring Self-Publishers, Start Here

Now is the greatest time in history to be a writer. Self Publishing has taken what before might have been an insurmountable task, and put it only a mouse click away. The chance to have your book published. No more do the agents and publishing houses have power over the "unmarketable". Our readers get to choose who they want to read, and what they want to read about.

Unfortunately they also get to wade through the sludge pile of unedited, poorly thought out and poorly executed work. Not long ago I was also in awe at the concept of getting my work out there for others to enjoy. Excited that I would not have to worry about the rejection letters that I was sure would rain down on my mail box. (If I'd ever had the guts to send out any queries.)

My first novella was written for Harlequin nocturne cravings, and was studiously ignored for what seemed like forever to me, but was more like three months. During my wait, I discovered that you could self publish. I did my homework and found that the benefits of Independent publishing far out weighed the stigma. I took my little novella and self published it for the first time in December 2011. And never looked at a publishing house again.

Unfortunately I was not ready for publishing. All of the wrongs I previously stated ran through every inch of my book. Sales went through the roof, but it sat uneasy with me the more I learned. I fixed everything but the cover and today it is still one of my best sellers. 

More and more on the forums I frequent I see newbies posting looking for feedback on a book they've already put up for sale. This is not the time to ask for help! That time is before you even upload. Writers groups are around for your benefit. Use them. This is the best place to ask some one for opinions on what you might be doing wrong. 

Your mother, brother, friend, co worker, do not qualify as editors. Even as proof readers they fall short. None of them will want to hurt your feelings, therefor, they will not tell you when your story isn't good enough. Grammar, spelling, syntax, flow and story progression, can only be remedied by an editor. No, your Microsoft Word spell checker does not count as an editor.

Self Publishing is the most rewarding thing I've ever done, but like any thing that's worth doing, it requires hard work, determination, and drive. Slow down, take a deep breath, and polish your work before you start selling it. You will be rewarded in the end. 

Til next time, may your Muse be at your side, and your writing the light that guides you.

Dawn

Judging A Book By It's Cover. The Evolution Of An eBook Cover

-Mark Barry

I always wanted to write a football hooligan novel. 

Most Americans would never have heard of the pastime which dominated male culture in Cities across Great Britain in the seventies and eighties, but the hobby was pretty widespread. 

I was actively involved in my younger days and had a resource to draw from.

In November and December last year I put together 60k novel on er, off-field activities at Notts County Football Club, in Nottingham, England - the oldest football league club in the world. 

Then, after getting the bug bigtime, and discovering a talent for fast writing, I started writing other books and before you know it, I had four, one planned and a publishing company. 

Trouble is, while I can write a storm, I am an idiot when it comes to Art.

 I have to say that I have no artistic talent whatsoever. 

CSE Grade 5 Art in 1980. 

My Art teacher, the glamourous but waspish Mrs Dowell, in the days when these things were allowed, humiliated me in front of 25 other children by laughing at my publicly displayed effort. 

And that was that with my aspirations to paint landscapes in Sherwood Forest.

UV "Kent Cover" Version One Feb 2012

So when it came to covers, I was worried. 

Then, I thought, how difficult can this BE in a world of technology! With all the packages available, you too can be Picasso, a Renoir, a David Bailey.

So in February this year, I travelled to Kent and started designing the five covers.

Using Open Office Draw, Google and a notepad and pen, I came up with the above for the football hooligan novel.  

At the time, I wanted a pseudonym for the book - hence, Simon Haddow. (Shadow - Mask - Geddit?) 

This is a photograph of some West Ham fans taunting Millwall supporters stretched a bit in a Cubist, Twilight Zone, dreamlike state

When I showed him the finished product on my now defunct website, a friend asked me where I got the photograph. 

I said Google. 

He then went into a ten minute rage about copyright (being a top photographer and graphic designer.)

I never gave it a second thought. I thought Google Images was a public access thing. 

It took me about a day for my friend Kelly and I to design the above, choose the colours, the fonts and all that - and ten seconds to delete it.

Version II didn;t take too long. As Trainer (Sneaker) Culture  was a key aspect of the football hooligan scene in the eighties, I decided - indeed, became fixated - upon the notion of using a sneaker on the front. It seemed to say everything to me. 

Ultra Violence "Diadora Plain" Version II March 2012

I took a photograph of one of my trainers, a Diadora Borg Elite with Gold Epaulettes, and messed about with it on Open Office. 

Notice that the font layout and texture is the same as Version 1. Just different colours.

A week later, I was on the treadmill in my local gym and my trainer came up to me and told me he'd seen all the new covers on the website. He asked me what I'd used to design them. I told him. Open Office. Great JPEG conversion reliability.

Well, he went quiet. 

A lovely young lad called Adam. Top notch gamer. Has a Solid State hard drive and that.  Knows Java. I like to think he's a good friend of mine and as I plodded along at 8k an hour, I realised he didn't like the covers but he was far too nice to tell me. 

Not just the Ultra Violence one. 

All of them.

Gulp. Launch date for the books coming up like a bullet train in open country and five new covers to design.

Version 3 below is my attempt at a Seventies "Reader's Digest" approach. A thematic branding in trendy black and white, with a stark bottle green afterflash. I like the symbolic flash of red.

All five look identical to this. I loved the big green number and I quite like the aesthetic combination of grey and green. I used Word. 

I spent an entire week doing this and I couldn't wait to put the five covers on the website.

UV "Fifty Shades of Grey" Version III April 2012

I did so.

Sales went through the floor. 

That's where Dawn Smith of Dark Dawn Creations got involved.

In my short time on the Amazon Forum, I met Dawn. 

Early June. None of my books were selling. My friend and close associate, Kelly, had feedback that my covers were unappealing. 

As I have never bought a book in my entire life (and I have a sneaky collection of around a thousand), based on its cover, I didn't think that a cover made a jot of difference.

Maybe when I was about to starve, I would see the error of my ways.

One night in early June, Dawn advertised on the forum as a cover designer saying she had slots available. 

It was just too good to be true. I e-mailed her straight away and she got straight back to me. I asked her to assess my covers and she said she would.

Well. 

She didn't mince her words. I was chastened.

And with that, I was the last customer to get a deal.

Together, on Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo e-mail, Dawn and I worked on the five covers. 

Here's Version 4.

UV "County Road" Version IV June 2012

I took the photograph of Notts County's Meadow Lane stadium one afternoon in mid June. 

The guy in the hat is a Random from one of the Stock sites. 

I had never heard of Stock, but I had heard of multi thousand pound lawsuits by now and I won't make that mistake again. 

The bloody ball is Dawn's idea. 

All my books have my name in this format - based on Stephen King's First Edition hardback "Skeleton Crew", in solid block letters. Dawn came up with the colours for the title and I added the red graffiti idea. 

In all, it took us about eight nights/days - there are 8 hours between the UK and Arizona - to produce six covers (including one newly written book). 

Dawn suggested I drop the Green Wizard branding as it was fatally flawed after my abortive launch. I did so, with heavy heart, though only temporarily, and the brand has helped the marketing in other ways.

You can see them all in the photo folder of Green Wizard Publishing on Facebook or on Dawn's website.

Together, Dark Dawn Creations and Green Wizard Publishing are working on the paperback cover designs (UV is already out). I can honestly say that visiting the Amazon forum - a battleground if there ever was one - that afternoon was one of the most important (and lucky) decisions I've ever made. 

Thanks, Dawn!!

Mark Barry

Green Wizard

Find Mark at: 

Green Wizard Publishing Facebook

The Wizards Cauldron

The Independent Paperback Bookshop

Mark Barry has become a good friend in our months of planning and co-conspiring, and I look forward to seeing his dreams come to fruition. As the founder of Dark Dawn Creations I have helped many authors get the cover they desire cheaper than they could have imagined, and I have gained many friends. I will help any one, regardless of budget or genre. Stop by my website and drop me a line, I'm always here to help. 

Til next time, may your muse be at your side, and your writing the light that guides you. 

Dawn

Economic Collapse? What about the Future of Ebooks?

 by Damien Darby

The latest deluge of economic data has swept through and it doesn’t look good - how will this affect the future of ebooks? Austerity measures are creeping over the modern western world, and yet Spain is the next runner-up in sovereign nations on the edge of default. Europeans have been consuming ebooks and their corresponding technologies voraciously, and their employment struggles are as intense as ours here in the states, if not worse. On the other hand, huge new markets are set to open in the near future. One example is the Kindle’s debut in China set for next year. Another is the up and coming consumers of India and Australia.

I bet right now in some deep dark nerd dungeon, there are a lucky few engineering 21st century translation software tailored for ebooks that are destined to be the billionaires of the next decade. Something palpable and malleable that will be used by online distributors from Bangkok to Boston.   

Many ebook authors find themselves wondering what the future of ebooks looks like given the mainstream media’s harping on ever more dangerous fiscal realities. Many of us ebook authors in the trenches have seen our sales dip after the last holiday season and rightly so. Since then too much about most people’s money has become unstable, unsure, and unpredictable. Big name titles are still making it to Hollywood, and recently guests on popular talk shows are there to promote their “ebook” finally, but what can the average author expect?

What the Future of Ebooks Will Bring

• The unflinching domination of print books by their digital counterparts will stay the course, unless for some reason we go back to the Stone Age.
• Handheld technology and eReaders will be distributed and used by a third of the human population within the next decade.
• Quality control is going to begin hammering down, putting more pressure on aspiring ebook authors to polish their work in order to compete.
• Readers will form increasingly powerful niche groups online that most likely promise more sales than traditional social networking today. Sorry Facebook and Twitter.

Time to Take Stock

A fair amount of authors today got in the digital gold rush of ebooks around the middle of last year. Like a herd, discouraged workers, college students, and the unemployed sought to be the next big thing to hit the digital scene, and make a killing. However, the recession has worsened, and some of the hype didn’t pan out. Perhaps now is a good time, in light of the future of ebooks, to sit back and take stock of what you’ve done. Furthermore, what you can do to ensure a higher degree of success in the near future.

• Get your works edited/proofread as soon as possible. Filling the shelves is great, and needs to be done, but make sure that the products can compete.
• Go over the small details and make sure everything is as it should be. One big example is categories. Too many authors skim the small stuff thinking it doesn’t matter. Tip: Get your books out of any “general” category, and put them in something more refined.
• If things are squared away, do some digging and see if there isn’t another new ebook distributor looking for titles. Do your research, but sticking to the Big Six isn’t practical anymore.

Discouragement is really Encouragement

I myself have published 14 ebooks, and I’m not quite at the point of a smashing success yet. I wholeheartedly, from balls to bones, believe in the future of ebooks. It’s been a rough road. The countless hours writing, formatting, and self-editing/re-reading made my shoulders and elbows ache, my lower back throb, and my eyes sore. However, the outlook is bright, as long as we consider our ebooks as what they are: long term investments not short order satisfaction.

3 Easy Things You Could Write for $$$

If you would like to see some quick sales, I advise people in my sphere to compose shorter articles between 4k-10k words long. They are less time consuming in terms of the editing and formatting departments, and the quick reads seem to be really popular right now. The last one I did was a mini biography in the owner of SpaceX, Elon Musk. Here’s five good ideas from me to you.

• Do an article on how a family could construct and maintain a small herb garden say, on the deck of a one or two bedroom apartment.
• Write one that in some aspect will appeal to the large swaths of “renters” that have taken over the depressed American real-estate market.
• With the end date of Dec 21st 2012 just around the corner, a “prepper” article would be a good shot. Give it a fascinating twist.
• A short zombie story that has to do with the “bath salts” drug would probably get some good hits. Be Quick!
• Figure out something you would love to learn, something small, simple, and then teach someone how to do it in 5k words.

Here’s to the future of ebooks, Cheers!

Damien Darby

Erotic Noir That Will Leave You Breathless, Author David Sterry

This is the last blog stop for the month, and boy has it been like Grand Central Station around here! Wrapping up the month is a man that makes it his life's work to help other authors get the recognition they deserve, while still finding time to write his own literary masterpieces. With out further adue: Author David Sterry.






 To begin, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

I am the son of immigrants. My great-grandfather was a coal miner in Newcastle. The place you never bring coals to. My mom and dad are in many ways the embodiment of the American Dream. They came to this country with basically nothing but the clothes on their backs, and after 20 years of hard work, sweat and sacrifice, they were getting divorced, totally broke and deep in therapy. I grew up in nice neighborhoods where kids play ball, swung on swings and rode merry go rounds. When I was 17 and briefly homeless, I was sexually assaulted by a large man wearing a shirt that said SEXY on it, then became a sex worker in Hollywood, while attending Immaculate Heart College, studying existentialism with a bunch of nuns. After that, I became a standup comedian, a soccer referee, commercial spokesman for companies like AT&T, McDonald's and Levi's, master of ceremonies at Chippendale's Mail Strip Club in the 80s in New York City, a problematic hypersexualist/sex maniac, had a three picture deal at Disney, acted with everyone from Michael Caine to Zippy the Chimp to Will Smith in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I am an accomplished table tennis player. 

 I help writers get published. Sometimes for money. Sometimes as an activist giving voice to people in our culture who have no voice. The poor, the abused, people who had the shit kicked out of them when they were kids. I have a business called The Book Doctors. I tour the country doing an event called Pitchapalooza. It's kind of like American Idol for books. Writers get 1 min. to pitch their books to a panel of experts. The winner gets an introduction to an agent or a publisher appropriate for their work. Our very first winner's book just came out it's called Love Inshallah, it's an anthology by Muslim American women writing about their secret love lives. It's a fantastic book. I'm very proud of the fact that we were able to help them get that book out into the world. at this time in history I think it's so important that as a race we embrace our similarities, the things we have in common, and the more we understand about people who are different from us, the less we will be inclined to hate on them. I write for the Huffington Post. I'm the one who broke the story about Bert and Ernie coming out for Same Sex Marriage. I am now the author of 13 books, the first of which was a memoir about my Hollywood sex worker days. It's called Chicken. It's been translated into 10 languages and the guy who runs the TV show Dexter just wrote a script from it which is being made into a movie. It's a surreal experience coming up with a list of names of actors who would play me in the movie. They're all much more handsome than me. I just finished reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. She writes the most beautiful sentences. The most exquisite paragraphs. Before that I read the entire Fire and Ice RR Martin thing, and by the seven gods it rocked!

 You have some very exceptional accomplishments; tell me, what made you decide to become an author? 

I have always loved words. Ever since I was a kid. I always loved to write. I was always writing little stories. When I became a teenager I love writing poetry. I love reading for that matter. All different kinds of books. And poetry too. I never knew anyone who was a professional writer when I was growing up. Obvious I knew people wrote books. But I never really considered that as a possibility. When I was a kid I wanted to be a professional athlete. A baseball player. I guess you could say I was kind of a Little League World Series type prodigy. And then I decided to become a professional soccer player. I was offered a contract by the Vancouver Whitecaps. Then I destroyed my knee. Then I decide to become a stand up comedian. And of course I wrote all my own material. So that was writing a very different kind. But it was a great education as a writer. Then I started writing short plays for the theater. They were all under 5 min. I performed them all over New York. Then I was a screenplay writer. And that was great training also. There are only two things you can show in a screenplay. What you see and what you hear. I also kept a journal for many years. I found that was a great way to work out the troubling shit flooding through my brain. After writing many screenplays I finally wrote my first novel. I started it probably 25 years ago. I finally sold it about a month ago. It's coming out in August. I really enjoyed the process of writing prose. A screenplay is just a bunch of symbols in a file until it gets made into a movie. And it's just so hard to get a screenplay made into a movie. Something like 400 movies get released every year. Whereas 250,000 books get published. And that's not counting self published people. A book is something real and palpable. I just enjoy it so much more. Writing stories and books. As opposed to screenplays.

Could you tell us a bit about your book, Confessions of a Sex Maniac?

First of all, let me make this very clear, it is not a memoir. Still, they say you should write about what you know. It's a piece of noir. I was commissioned to write it. I love all those great noir writers, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, Lawrence Block. It was so much fun to write. It came out very easily. It's about a low-level bagman working in the seedy groin of the Tenderloin, one of San Francisco's, in fact America's, hardest, rawest, nastiest neighborhoods. He falls under the spell of the Snow Leopard, a woman as spectacular as she is deadly. In the and he has to choose: sex or death?

 You travel all over the country promoting, how do you find time to write?

 I have constructed a life in which I'm able to set aside chunks of time. Mostly I work between the hours of 9 PM and six in the morning. But if I had a regular job I wouldn't be able to do it. I often sleep in the day. But also, I do have an obsessive personality. If I don't write for a couple of days I feel all backed up. Creatively constipated. There's so little I can control of my real life. When I write something, I can control everything. I can make it turn out exactly like I wanted to. And it's such a great joy in finding the perfect turn of phrase, an unexpected way to see something, to illuminate and elucidate something in the human condition. When it's good, it's quite transcendent and invigorating.

What is your writing style like? Do you prefer the organized outline, or the mayhem of freestyle?

 I am a maximalist. The first couple of drafts I write always have too many words in them. I will spit out three different metaphors to describe something. Then in the editing process I combine the three and come up with something that's streamlined and unexpected. I am an avowed enemy of the cliché. I love playing with language and inventing words. I'm drawn to writers who do the same. Irvine Welsh and Ogden Nash. Mark Twain and Dr. Seuss. At the same time, I really don't like writing that is so focused on language that there's no character and plot. To me, the best kind of books are filled with poetic language as well as characters I love and hate and love to hate, and stories that are so good they make me feel sad when the end of the book is in sight. in terms of outline and freestyle, I prefer a balance of both. I was trained as a screenwriter in the Disney system. Before you start writing a screenplay for them, you outline every scene in its minutia, plot out every single beat. It's their way of micromanaging and controlling their products in the most intense way. But again, it was great training as a writer. It's so much easier to write something when you know everything that's going to happen. For myself, I'm constantly making outlines and revising them over and over as I go through the work. It makes it easier actually to improvise. It's like a jazz musician who has a score. There is a melody. That gives you something to go off. Like Coltraine doing My Favorite Things. It's so amazing because you know what the melody is, and you see how he's moving all around it, over it, under it, turning it inside out and upside down, taking your breath away by doing something so magical and unexpected and original, yet still somehow retaining the heart and soul of the original piece.

What is the best piece of advice you can give to aspiring authors out there?

Have 1 million Twitter followers. That's the fastest way to get a book deal right now. I'm working on that myself. No but seriously. Get other people to read your work. As many as you can. I get so many manuscripts that are so half-baked. Hire a professional editor. Someone who's great. Do not give your money to a charlatan. It's like the Wild West out there. Anybody can throw up a shingle and say that they're in editor. Or a self publisher for that matter. Make sure you very carefully investigate anybody in the publishing business before you give them one single penny. Same with promoting and marketing. I once spent $5000 hiring a publicist. I might as well have taken $50 100 bills and set them on fire. Research. Find out who are the people publishing and agenting and reading and blogging about the kinds of books that you write. Support your local bookstore. Go to author events. Join a writers group. Cultivate a tribe of people who are passionate about the same things you are. The first principle of social media is Good Samaritanism.

Lastly, is there anything else you would like to add?

 I think it's the greatest time in history to be a writer. There are many people who bemoan the fact that anyone can now get a book published. Especially old-school publishing industry uppercrusty stick-up-the-butts who swaddle themselves in snoberation. The traditional publishing industry was tragically flawed. It was elitist and exclusionary. A little club that you have to either be born into, buy your way into, or luck your way into. Those days are gone. And I celebrate that. But getting a book published and getting people to read it are two very different things. The good news is that anyone can get a book published. The bad news is that anyone can get a book published. But I think it's so great that we live in a time where any writer can get their ideas and their words out into the world. I have seen over and over again that when people write a great book, work their asses off at networking, due diligent research, and persevere, they can have great success publishing their book.




Follow David On twitter:  @sterryhead 4 twttification

And don't forget to like him on facebook :  http://www.facebook.com/DavidHenrySterry

Mystery, Romance, and Lies, Author Jade Varden

If you love a little mystery to go with your romance, I have something special for you! Jade Varden, author of the YA romantic suspense series, Deck Of Lies, is the blog tour stop of the week. Enjoy!

                           Justice (Deck of Lies, #1)




A House of Cards…

When you build an entire life on a foundation of lies, it only takes one truth for the whole thing to come crashing down. I never invited the truth in. I never went searching for it. I never had any reason to suspect that the two people I loved most were dishonest with me every second of every day.

I made one bad decision, and in a single day my entire world changed. If I’m ever going to discover the truth about myself and my parents, I have to trace all the lies back to their source. I have to try to find the truth that they’re hiding.

The more I discover about myself, and my past, the more I realize that lies really are better than the truth. But now that I know the lies are all around me, I can’t stop until I’ve discovered them all. I’ll pull each lie away, one by one, and examine it to see what’s underneath…until this house of cards crumbles into dust at my feet.

I just hope I can survive the crash.

 



Reviews: 

I really enjoyed this book and it had been one of the only ones I haven't been able to predict. I was constantly thinking 'I didn't see that coming!' When usually I'm like 'I knew that was going to happen, I bet this will happen next... oh what do you know, I was right.' Rain Ramey was quite a good main character.

-Emily, Confessions of a Bookaholic

It is very rare for me to not be able to predict the twists and turns in a story. This book was one in a million! The plots twists completely caught me off guard...and I LOVED IT!

...Jade Varden has proved herself to be an amazing author! I definitely recommend this book to everyone. The next book in the series is called 'The Tower' and I cannot wait to read it!!

-Review from Erin at Bookluvrshaven

                            The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2)

A Tower of Deception...

Death brings some families closer, but it’s ripped mine apart. I wanted to convince the police that they had the wrong suspect...but I never expected them to start suspecting me. Now, I have no choice but to keep searching for the truth, even if all my relationships fall to pieces around me.

Someone is trying to make me look guilty. I never thought my mission to prove my own innocence would lead me to more family secrets. I thought I had already discovered the truth about myself. But every answer raises more questions, and everything I think I know is about to change...again.

I have to find the truth, no matter how much it hurts -- before I get charged with murder.

Review:

Did The Tower deliver? Absolutely! :) I stayed up reading with one eye it was that good!

Normally I struggle with "Second-Book-Syndrome" - I love the first then find the second one less than satisfying (Twilight, The Hunger Games, Hush Hush series and Darkest Powers series all had this for me) - with The Tower I actually liked it better than Justice and would agree with the idea that you could read this book without having read the first. Although the characters and story continues from the first book, The Tower is written in a way that also allows it to work as a stand-alone book, which I think is great.

...Jade has a really good writing style: well-described, interesting and believable characters, who work well in the events of the novel. I absolutely have my suspicions as to who has done what...but I'll need to read the next book to find out!

-Melanie, Goodreads Reader

About Jade.

Jade Varden writes young adult novels for teen readers. When she’s not working on her books, Jade contributes freelance fashion articles to VAR magazine, and blogs practical writing tips for authors who self-publish. Follow her on Twitter @JadeVarden. 

Science Fiction with a Twist, Author Travis McBee

I have a special treat for all the Sci-Fi lovers out there! Travis McBee, author of the Bridgeworld series graces the front page of my blog today. 

Could you tell us a bit about your self?

Well I’m twenty-two, live in the mountains, and I write books. Wait a second...does that sound cliché? Crap...

Your book Bridgeworld is original and well written, what was your inspiration?

The inspiration behind Bridgeworld came from a book I had read years before called “The Dark Side of Nowhere”. In that book, a boy found out that his small town was really populated by aliens disguised as humans, and he was one of them. I was musing over that book for some reason when I wondered what it would be like if the boy had been forced to integrate back into the alien society his parents were from. I wrote the prequel to Bridgeworld that very day, but it became what I like to call “sketchy” which is a word I use to describe things that get just a little too weird. I became disillusioned with it and shelved it.

A few months later I was tidying up my computer files when I ran across the prequel. The idea behind the story infatuated me again, but I still didn’t want to write a book that was inundated with weird names and strange looking creatures. Then it suddenly hit me: make the aliens human as well. I ‘m not prejudiced against books which do have strange creatures, but to me it would have lost the mystery and wonder of being able to relate to someone going through something as crazy as living on a different planet if he wasn’t human. From there the ideas started spreading like wildfire, including a history of why people ended up being in space. That history wasn’t mentioned until the second book, but I had achieved what I had aimed for, making the idea of the story completely possible under normal laws of nature.

Will there be a sequel to Bridgeworld?

Yes! I’ve already written the second book and it’s scheduled to be released in July. There will be four books in the entire series (unless I decide there should be more of course!)

What is your writing style like? Are you an organized writer or do you like to free write?

It depends on what I’m writing. For short stories I just go for it, but if I’m writing a novel I have to have a very intricate set of notes in front of me. I become distracted very easily so I need an outline to keep prodding me back onto course.

What kind of books do you read in your down time?

I read everything, and I mean everything. I read a lot of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but I also read classical authors like Twain and Stoker. I’ve also read most of Nicholas Sparks books as well (to impress the ladies with my sensitive side of course!). If your going for genres, I hit all of them: sci-fi, fantasy, general fiction, romance, horror, mystery. I read young adult as well as adult books. I try to be well read.

Are you reading anything right now, and would you recommend it?

At the moment I’m reading “The Deadzone” by Stephen King. It’s been pretty good—not my favorite but not bad. It’s worth a read if you haven’t read it.  

Do you have any other projects in the works?

At the moment I’m writing a middle grade novel about a boy who uses a haunted house to get back at a bully.

What do you like best about being an author? What do you like the least?

I love talking to people about writing. Writers are passionate about what they do and it seems like that’s rare among people today. I love giving people tips and getting advice from others. It’s also the best feeling in the world when a stranger tells you that they really enjoyed your work. The worst part is the rejection. Men are terrified of rejection, but when you’re an author you get rejected dozens of times.

Any advice for those who wish to become an author?

Keep at it. It’s a lot of work to write a novel or even a quality short story. Don’t give up and never think that you’re good enough, always try to get better. But the biggest piece of advice is cliché but very very true: Don’t do it for the money—you probably won’t get rich—do it because you love it.

And Finally, is there anything else you would like to add?

Just to thank you for having me, it’s been a real pleasure!

 Author Bio: 

Travis McBee was born and raised just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. He is the younger of two children and enjoys backpacking, playing rugby, and watching football. He is the author of four novels: Bridgeworld, Bridgeworld: Encounter at Atlantis, Triton: Rise of the Fallen, and Triton: The Call of War. He is also the author of a children’s series: The Chronicles of a Second Grade Genius. He currently resides in Georgia.

Follow Travis On Twitter : twitter.com/travis_mcbee

and Don't Forget To Like Him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BridgeworldAcademy

One of the most entertaining Interviews I've ever done! Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did! Until next time, may your Muse be at your side, and your writing the light that guides  you.  

Dawn.