Adults Who Like Young Adult Fiction!

I'm discovering that my writing may appeal to a broader audience than I originally thought. Are you an adult who is drawn to young adult fiction series like Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, and Divergent? What is intriguing about them? The storyline or the young characters? Do you like the escape into a different world, or do you still see yourself traveling a young person's path? I'd love to know your thoughts. Please comment here!

Sneak Peek: RJ's Story

A wicked storm delivered RJ to Heaven's Wait. What did it do to Vowella Valley?


WB1-3 Ma1

Social Media Book Promotion Strategy

I was so intrigued by this article concerning marketing your books the right way (http://thefutureofink.com/create-marketing-funnel/), that I spent the day creating this chart for myself so I could understand how the concept would work when more than one social media element is involved. Here’s what I came up with. I’m going to try it out. I hope it helps other authors out there as well.

Sunday Reflections on the Journey

As I work my way toward releasing my first two books on Amazon and various other venues, I am reminded of the times, several years back, when the world of Heaven's Wait was first blossoming in my mind and starting to show its face on the page. Today, much of my time involves fine tuning the manuscript, working with an illustrator, and plotting out my marketing strategy. Back then, I spent my time discovering what my mind could create, wondering if I knew enough to try my hand at writing (which I didn't), and digging for the confidence to let my ideas go where they wanted to go. Once I got into it, I was surprised by what occurred.
You are welcome to read more about the evolution of Heaven's Wait here in the HW History section: http://frombarbaram.blogspot.com/search/label/HW%20History

Everyday Wisdom!

One of Heaven's Wait's central characters, RJ PLOM, has a knack for spreading everyday wisdom. Wistabite! WB2-5-RJ2

New Illustrator for Heaven's Wait

I'm so excited to now be working with a bright young illustrator who is going to be doing my book covers and several other illustrations to accompany my book series. My characters are soon going to be taken to a whole new level. This morning, I'm writing some careful notes for him to use in the creation of the covers. Because the illustrations will take some time, I am pushing back the launch of Innocents and the relaunch of RJ's Story, but it will be so worth it. I'll post some preliminary sketches as we move along. The illustrator is Michael Trujillo. Please check out his work at: http://www.trujilloillustration.com/

Formatting Sections Breaks for eBooks!

For anyone formatting manuscripts for Smashwords and Kindle, I discovered a nice way to create space between sections within chapters without using returns. Kindle says you can't rely on returns for section breaks across their various formats. So in Word, I created a style called Section Break and gave it all the Normal/Body attributes, but under Format/Paragraph/Spacing/After, I assigned it the number 15. Then I highlighted the last paragraph of each section, assigned the Section Break style to the paragraph, and deleted the return(s) that previously filled that space. It takes time, but the manuscript looks so much cleaner. Hopefully, this process will make things look that much better when I upload it. Oh, I'm
being so anal about this. I hate reading an eBook that is poorly formatted.