For the Criminally Inane

Baker's Dozen is featured on the BookSweeps giveaway !  Win free books and download freebooks. I was a little skeptical, so I went to the site and signed up. All the books look so interesting and fun! I had to click on all the authors. So check it out! This won't last long! Be sure to sign up for author newletters and download some free books!

I'm going to share my marketing plan so that others can see what I'm doing and why. Most of your promotion should be done before your book is released. You want to build hype before the book comes out. You can also host mid-year sales, and anniversary sales.  Step one : Develop a marketing plan by asking and answering the following questions Who is your audience? Define their ages, (don’t say 18-99--the more specific the better) What other books are they reading? What hobbies do they enjoy? What do they not like? What appeals to them? What kind of images would attract their attention? Where does your audience hang out? Where do they live in cyber world? Facebook? Instagram? Twitter? Book review blogs?  What’s different about your book? Step Two : Create a brainstorm cloud with your book in the center. Now add all the ways you can reach your defined audience. Other bubbles include: Your newsletter Your blog Your Youtube channel Your Twitter account Yo...

Deep POV is one of my favorite things to write in. It's close. It's personal. It's deep. It heightens the emotion of the character and brings the reader closer. I just turned in my second romantic suspense. A sequel to my Baker's Dozen romantic suspense mystery. My editor sent me a guide of words to eliminate in my writing. Here are my top favorite to avoid. 1. Saw If your point of view character saw something, just say what he saw. Alan saw Margret brush a stray hair from her eyes. vs. Margret brushed a stray hair from her eyes. 2. Thought If you are in your character's head, you rarely need to mention he thought something. We want to stay close to the writer's sensibilities, almost mimicking his thought. Alan thought there had to be a better way than this. vs. There had to be a better way than this. 3. Felt  If you have to tell us she felt something, then it destroys the sense of closeness. Margaret felt angry. vs. Margaret beat ...

I've had this philosophy lately to give up my fear. It first started in my twenties when I served as a missionary in Switzerland and France, talking to people about their deepest fears, their hopes and dreams for the future. The President of my mission said to me, "Get rid of your stress, worry, anxiety and fear; those will keep you back." Up to that point I'd always seen stress or worry as a form of mental energy progressing me to a solution, but in reality, it was exhausting me and paralyzing me. Ten years ago, I decided to put away my fears. My fears of never becoming a writer, my fear that I would never be good enough to publish, my fear of not getting out all these wonderful stories I had tucked inside my heart. My husband told me to sit down and write something. So I did. I had this scene in my head about a girl who got poison ivy because I had just been through a rash of it. And she was a young girl, and I found out that beer can help offset the affects o...

Pinterest is a great social media tool for introverts. It's less social than many other platforms. What I love about Pinterest: Any post can be seen by all users In other social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook etc, only your followers can see your posts. Pinterest is unique because it's basically a huge search engine for pulling information. (More about "push" and "pull" later.) Posts have a long shelf life I started Pinterest years ago and people still "repin" my posts. Shelf life of Twitter is a few seconds, IG and Facebook are a little bit longer, but the staying power of Pinterest is unbeatable. Archival Everything can (must be!) be categorized and stored for Pinterest to work. That's good news for those creating pins. They last and are easy to find. Media You can use all sorts of different media: movies gifs, jpegs, images, recipes etc. in your pins Use to discover and save new ideas and link back to ...

As a writer, I often sit for long periods of time. Every once in a while, I need to stop and take a break. I do these five quick exercises and only spend about 30 seconds a piece. Even this quick little pick-me-up after sitting over the computer dreaming up sweet romances and clean romantic suspense plots. Exercise doesn't have to be lengthy to be effective, every bit of exercise is good. As with any exercise, be sure to consult your doctor to make sure it's okay for you do to any of these exercises. And make sure you follow a few tips: Lunges: keep your knees at 45 degree angles and don't let your knees go over your toes. Don't do if you have knee or hip problems. Squats: keep knees over ankles and drop your bottom. Even shallow squats will be beneficial. Don't do if you have knee problems. Arm circles: stick out your arm parallel to the floor and rotate your wrists back to rotate your arms back. Then rotate wrists forward to move arms forward. Don't tr...

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the day I received my mission call and assignment to serve in Switzerland. I was so excited. I had wanted to go to Switzerland and speak French since I was nine years old. But you don't get to pick where you go, so I felt real blessed. You are probably wondering what living in Switzerland and a sweet romance have to do with each other. While I was in Switzerland I had many choice experiences. I met so many wonderful faithful people. And I had some crazy adventures that come with living in a foreign country. It was hard to leave my friends, family and everything familiar to me, to live in a country with differing cultures, language and customs. But I learned and grew a lot and I learned to love the people, not just a country. From this love sprang this novel about Lainey Peterson who overcomes adversity and fear, perseveres through some tough situations and also manages to fall in love with a great guy. But Lainey wants to get into the ...