March 10, 2015 by Lori L MacLaughlin

Blog Tour! With Marie Andreas at Faeries, Dragons, and Spaceships!

My blog tour to celebrate the release of my new fantasy adventure novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble, continues this week with a guest post on novelist Marie Andreas’ blog, Faeries, Dragons, and Spaceships. Come visit and read my Reason #57 for choosing self-publishing!

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March 9, 2015 by Lori L MacLaughlin

Blog Tour! With Caffe Maggieato at Just Get It Written!

My blog tour to celebrate the release of my new fantasy adventure novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble, continues this week as I talk today with Caffe Maggieato on her blog, Just Get It Written. Check out her Behind the Scenes Author Interview to find out which character from my novel is my favorite. Can you guess? (Hint: It’s not who you might think!)

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February 27, 2015 by Lori L MacLaughlin

Celebrate the Small Things — My First Novel Has Arrived!!

EDIT: Thank you to everyone! I’ve discovered some formatting issues with the e-book, and I’m working to resolve them. I’ll visit and reply to everyone as soon as I get this ironed out.

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly celebration created by VikLit and now hosted by Lexa Cain to celebrate the happenings of the week, however small or large. You can learn all about it and sign up for it here.

It’s here!!!!

This week I’m celebrating a very BIG thing — my first novel is being released today!

Whoo, hoo!! I’m so excited! To think that after all these years, my book is finally in print. Well, sort of. It’s currently available in e-book form, but will be out in print form very soon, if all goes well. The color issues have been fixed, and the print cover file is being processed. All my fingers and toes are crossed that it goes through this time.

Either way, I’m going to celebrate!!!

Trouble is Tara Triannon’s middle name. As swords for hire, Tara and her sister Laraina thrive on the danger. But a surprise invasion throws them into chaos… and trouble on a whole new level. Pursued by the Butcher, a terrifying assassin more wolf than man, Tara and Laraina must get a prince marked for death and a young, inept sorceress to safety. There’s only one problem – eluding the Butcher has never been done. Aided by a secretive soldier of fortune, they flee the relentless hunter.

Gifted with magic and cursed by nightmares that are all too real, Tara must stop an army led by a madman and fend off an evil Being caught in a centuries-old trap who seeks to control her magic and escape through her dreams – all while keeping one step ahead of the Butcher.

Available at:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Name-Trouble-Lori-MacLaughlin-ebook/dp/B00TT8NERU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425178824&sr=1-1&keywords=lady+thy+name+is+trouble

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lady-thy-name-is-trouble-lori-l-maclaughlin/1121255932?ean=9781942015017

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/lady-thy-name-is-trouble

What other celebrations are going on out there?

February 25, 2015 by Lori L MacLaughlin

The Long-Awaited Cover!

Early last week, I received the long-awaited cover for my fantasy novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble.

I love the colors and the way the elements blend together.

I had hoped that once I got the file, it would be smooth sailing into publication, but was it easy? Of course not. What was I thinking?

Making the e-book cover from the cover file using Adobe Photoshop was simple enough. But then I had to figure out how to convert my MS Word file, including the cover, to the epub version 3 required by Ingram/Spark for the e-book. Calibre only converts to epub version 2. I searched the Web for a free program that would do the conversion without a huge learning curve. I know some HTML, but I’m not a programmer. Ingram/Spark would have done the conversion for me, but I really didn’t want to pay them the $250 or so to do it.

I ended up using a program from the Daisy Consortium: a “Save as Daisy” add-in for Word, which, along with the Consortium’s Tobi and Pipeline 2 programs (all free downloads), allowed me to convert my file. Interestingly, the programs’ original intent is to create books with sound for people with vision problems. Below, are the links to the programs and the instructions.

http://www.daisy.org/project/save-as-daisy-microsoft/

http://www.daisy.org/daisypedia/how-convert-microsoft-word-document-accessible-epub3

http://www.daisy.org/daisypedia/tobi-convert-daisy-books-epub3

The instructions weren’t hard to follow, but I did have to do some uninstalling and reinstalling of the programs to get them to work together the way they were supposed to. I persevered, though, and in the end, I had the necessary version 3 epub file.

I’m sure there must be other ways to do a free conversion of Word to epub 3. If anyone has experience with other programs, I’d love to hear about it.

At the end of last week, I uploaded all the files to Ingram/Spark, set a release date of February 27^th, and crossed my fingers that everything would go through. The customer service person told me that file processing generally takes 3 to 5 business days.

The e-book files went through with no problem, but they found an issue with the print cover file — something about the CMYK color percentages being too high. The file needs to be adjusted and resubmitted. Unfortunately, it’s not something I know how to do. So, until I can coordinate with the cover designer, who I think is away on vacation since we have school vacation this week, the print version of my book is on hold.

However, the e-book version has already been picked up by Amazon and Barnes & Noble and is available for preorder. I discovered this when I did a search on the book title out of curiosity over the weekend. (My jaw hit the floor.) I hadn’t expected it to be listed so quickly. I’d read that it could take two or three weeks to show up on retail sites.

Now, I’m having a hard time getting my head around the fact that Friday is the big day. THE DAY! After almost 30 years of chasing this dream, it’s down to 2 days. It seems too surreal to be true. In 2 days I will be a published author!!!!!!!

January 21, 2015 by Lori L MacLaughlin

The Official Map!

In two previous posts, Western Kingdoms of Alltyyr, Part 1 and Western Kingdoms of Alltyyr, Part 2, I described some of the various kingdoms that comprised the fictional world I had created for my fantasy novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble. I always draw maps to go with my stories, partly because I love drawing maps, and partly because I need that visual reference to plot characters’ movements.

A couple of people commented that they would like to see the map, so — here it is! It took me a while to ink it in, which made me wish I hadn’t drawn it in quite so much detail. 🙂 I’m worried that it won’t look professional enough, compared to the maps I see in traditionally published books, but it’s the best I can do, so hopefully, it will work.

Right now, it’s just black and white. Someday, I want to color it in and hang it on my wall. I think it would be really neat to have a section of wall covered with maps of my fictional worlds.

January 7, 2015 by Lori L MacLaughlin

IWSG — Less Than A Month Away — Aaaaaaaah!

Today’s the day for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) where, on the first Wednesday of every month, writers get together to share their insecurities and offer encouragement. The IWSG was created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, and you can learn all about it and sign up for it here.

We were asked to introduce ourselves today, so here goes. I’m a writer of fantasy adventure who lives in Vermont with my kids, two of the best teenagers ever. I’m working my way up the self-publishing mountain, and I’ve almost reached the summit, which makes me giddy — or maybe it’s just the thin air up here…

I’m planning an early February release date (my target date is the 3^rd) for my fantasy adventure novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble, providing I can accomplish the rest of what needs to be done by that time. All the usual first-time-author insecurities are plaguing me more than ever. Sometimes I feel like I’m sitting on an over-stuffed suitcase, trying to close it, while the monsters of insecurity are trying to force their way out. I know all aspiring authors go through this, and I just need to persevere. I’ve been waiting so long for this dream to become a reality. I’m not going to let my insecurities stop me from reaching my goal of becoming a published author.

On that note, if anyone would like to help by reading e-ARCs for reviews, posting about my book on the release date, hosting me on your site with an author interview or whatever format you like, and/or sharing the news of the book’s release in other ways — Facebook, Twitter, or whooping and shouting to the rooftops (sorry, that’s what I’ll be doing 🙂 ), I’d be super grateful! Just let me know either in the comments or through the contact form, and I’ll send you whatever materials you need.

Thanks so much to everyone who has supported me on this journey! I know 2015 is going to be awesome!

March 6, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

What I Love

I write fantasy adventure. That’s what I love best — stories with lots of action, strong female characters, a bit of levity, and sighs of romance. Not the jump-into-bed-every-five-minutes type of romance, but the kind where the attraction builds into a true, caring relationship that, if given the chance, can transcend all the challenges the heroine and hero must face.

But love is not what the heroine of the story wants. Tara Triannon and her sister Laraina are swords for hire whose exploits across the Westlands are legendary. The one time Tara let her heart be touched, love burned her badly, and she has no intention of getting caught again by love’s fickle ways. However, when things go terribly wrong, the one man whose help she needs is the one man who can threaten her resolve. Jovan Trevillion, though, is a man of many secrets and accepting his help may be even more dangerous than keeping to the perilous path she and her sister already follow. But with the Butcher on their trail, their choices are limited.

Captain Natiere, the Butcher, an assassin with a tortured soul and the heart of a wolf, pursues them relentlessly. Harboring secrets of his own, the Butcher wants only to kill Tara and her companions to discharge a debt, and then he will be free to return to the wilds and perhaps find some way to fill his empty existence. Much to his surprise, his fate becomes more and more entangled with Tara’s with every passing step.

I never think of Tara and Laraina, Jovan, or Captain Natiere — or any of the other people in my book — as characters. They are as real to me as if they were made of flesh and blood. I love sharing in their lives and adventures, and it will be fun bringing them to a larger audience. Hopefully, they will be as inspiring to others as they are to me.