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!

December 17, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

The 777 Challenge

Last week, Loni Townsend over at Squirrel Talk participated in the 777 Challenge. The idea is to pick one of your WIPs, go to the 7^th page, find the 7^th line, and post the next 7 lines or so. At the end of her Challenge, she wrote: “If you would like to participate, consider yourself tagged.”

I thought it sounded like a fun idea, so I decided to take her up on it and post the appropriate 7 or so lines from page 7 of my soon-to-be published fantasy novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble, which, to me, will be a work-in-progress until I hold it as a book in my hand.

So here goes…

*****

The clash of battle began to fade.

Tara headed for the door. “Now is our chance to escape. This is not the time for vengeance. There are too many of them. We need to get away and warn Faragellyn. I doubt the Sulledorns intend to stop here.”

Kaden pounded the edge of his fist against the wall. “I will not be driven from my own castle!”

An ear-splitting scream rose above the battle sounds.

“Aurelia!” Prince Kaden cried.

“Wonderful. That’s all we need.” Tara whipped out her sword and dashed into the corridor.

*****

What did you think of this snippet?

Since I wasn’t specifically tagged for the Challenge, I’m not going to officially tag anyone else, but I’ll say the same thing that Loni did: If you’d like to give it a go, consider yourself tagged. 🙂

December 12, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

Celebrate the Small Things!

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly celebration created by VikLit 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 been a snowy week up here in Vermont, thanks to a coastal storm that doesn’t seem to want to go away. I guess the good thing about it is that we should now have a white Christmas! This week I’d like to celebrate:

Snow days! My kids enjoyed their day off from school because of the storm, and we have two odd-looking snowmen on our lawn to show for it.
I received paper samples in the mail from Ingram/Spark who will be handling the printing and distribution of my book. Very exciting!
I’m just about done with my Christmas shopping! Yay!

What other celebrations are going on out there?

December 3, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

IWSG — To Review, Or Not To Review…

I will soon be sending out ARCs and requesting advance reviews for my fantasy adventure novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble. I know that getting reviews is vital if I want my book to rise above the obscurity that self-publishing can bring. A solid word-of-mouth campaign is essential for an Indie book to succeed.

So it stands to reason that if I’ll be requesting reviews, I should be willing to give them in return. I’ve never written a book review because of the horror stories I’ve heard about authors who took offense at not-so-shining, albeit honest, reviews and retaliated by trashing the reviewers’ books, giving them terrible one-star reviews on all the online sites, and having their friends do the same.

The thought of going through something so devastating has persuaded me to keep my opinions to myself. However, I don’t feel that it’s fair of me to ask other writers for reviews if I’m not willing to reciprocate.

I would love to know how other writers feel about this. Do you write reviews? Do you ever worry about the bad apples out there trashing your books?

I would also like to thank the IWSG for putting together the Insecure Writer’s Support Group Guide to Publishing and Beyond – Available Now! Thank you! Can’t wait to read it!

November 19, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

My Big List of Book Reviewers

Laekan Zea Kemp very kindly shared her list of indie/self-published book reviewers that took her many, many, many hours of work to compile. I would like to personally thank her for her generosity!

As an indie author I know how difficult promo can be when you’re doing it all on your own. I spent the past three months sending out hundreds of emails, prepping blog posts, creating media kits, formatting review copies, and corresponding with readers and bloggers in preparation for my book tour for The Girl In Between and it’s during times like these that I’m reminded why self-publishing is not the easy way out. I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted but promo is just another part of the job and an important one seeing as obscurity is an indie author’s greatest adversary. The good news though is that there is an entire community out there of book-lovers turned bloggers who are willing to help authors in any way they can.

When I started sending out review requests for my first novel two years ago I had no idea how difficult it would be…

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November 16, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

Celebrate the Small Things: More Video!

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

I know Friday is long gone, but this week I would like to celebrate more video! I made another trailer for my fantasy novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble. This one is more of a character study, rather than a preview of what the story is about, like my last trailer which you can see by clicking here.

I thought this would be a more interesting way of introducing my main character, Tara Triannon. Any and all feedback/comments are appreciated. Thanks!

What other celebrations are going on out there?

November 5, 2014 by Lori L MacLaughlin

IWSG — Best Time To Publish? and New Book Release: Wickedly They Dream

I’m getting close to publishing my fantasy novel, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble. If all goes well, the big event will happen this winter.

Realizing this, I began to wonder, in general, what the best time was for new book releases. What month or time of year for a release date generates the most sales? Or does it really make a difference? I’d love to hear about others’ experiences with this and why they chose their publishing dates for their books.

And on this line of thought, today’s the exciting release date for Cathrina Constantine’s new book:

**Happy Release Day**
**GIVEAWAY**

Wickedly They Dream

Genre: Paranormal Thriller/Fantasy

Publisher: Black Opal Books
Grab it today for only 99 cents!
HERE

How Far Will Jordan go to rescue her mother. It will cost her everything–even her angel, Markus!

Buy Links: Amazon

Black Opal Books

Author Cathrina Constantine resides in Western New York. When not with her family, you’ll find her in the forest behind her house walking the dogs and conjuring a new tale.

You can find Cathy Here:

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