Meet Author Margaret Fieland

Born and raised in New York City, Margaret Fieland has been around art and music all her life. Daughter of a painter, she is the mother of three grown sons and an accomplished flute and piccolo player. She is an avid science fiction fan, and selected Robert A. Heinlein's “Farmer in the Sky” for her tenth birthday, now long past. She lives in the suburbs west of Boston, MA with her partner and seven dogs. Her poems, articles and stories have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Main Channel Voices, Echolocation, and Twisted Tongue. In spite of making her living as a computer software engineer, she turned to one of her sons to format the initial version of her website, a clear illustration of the computer generation gap. You may visit her website, http://www.margaretfieland.com.

Outline or By-the-Seat of Your Pants Writer?

By Elysabeth Eldering

National Novel Writing Month, or better known as NaNo, occurs in November. This is a time when everyone and anyone puts forth the effort to write a novel, or at least the beginnings of a full fledged novel. The goal of NaNo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days (about 1667 words a day). But 50,000 words isn't really a full novel. If you accomplish this goal, you may have about a novel that is 2/3 completed. You could actually write a complete novella in the 30 days but not a full-fledged novel.

I have participated in NaNo for several years now, mostly as a cheerleader and the "official word keeper" for our region but I did write a novella or young adult novel one year, although I didn't really start writing it until late in the month and it took me a couple of weeks into December to complete it. I hope to edit that story within the next few months, once my series is more stabilized and the state stories are just being plucked up by my illustrator for layout and all, and publish it.

So how does one go about finding ideas to write at the frenzied pace of 1667 words a day? Ideas are everywhere and as long as you have the burning desire to meet the challenge, you can accomplish this task with very few problems.

Some folks start planning several months ahead by outlining and developing characters and scenarios that they would like to see occur in their novel; some folks wait until the last minute to come up with the topic for their novel. Those who outline and plot and plan ahead of time seem to be more invested in their writing than those of us who write by-the-seat-of-our-pants. On the other hand, some very good writing has come from the "pantsers." So how do you know which is the way to go? Experiment.

I don't outline so much as I have a system for my stories. Since I do mostly short stories and there is no real plot in them, outlining wouldn't work for me. If I were to ever jump into doing a 75,000 word or more novel, I might try outlining some basic plot points. Or if the idea had been brewing for a while, I would probably do some generalized outlining. Until then, I will remain a "pantser" and am accepting of that.

If you have a couple of hours a day to spend writing, I challenge you to participate in NaNo. You can sign up at the NaNo website and take the challenge. See if you are an outliner or a pantser.

State of Wilderness, State of Quarries, State of Reservations, State of Successes (first four and in that order) are published already; State of Heights will be released within the next couple of weeks. E :)

--
Elysabeth Eldering
Author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad (JGDS), 50-state, mystery, trivia series


by Elysabeth Eldering

STATE OF WILDERNESS, Book 1 of 50 now available.
STATE OF QUARRIES, book 2 of 50 now available
STATE OF RESERVATIONS, book 3 of 50 now available
STATE OF SUCCESSES, book 4 of 50 now available
STATE OF HEIGHTS, coming October 2010
STATE OF NATURE, coming January 2011
STATE OF ACCELERATION, coming February 2011
STATE OF IMAGINATION, coming May 2011

WHERE WILL THE ADVENTURE TAKE YOU NEXT?

TRAIN OF CLUES, available August 2010

http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://jgdsseries.weebly.com/
http://elysabethsstories.blogspot.com/

Member SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), Carolinas region
Member Sisters in Crime, Greenville Chapter

The Well-Fed Self-Publisher

By Peter Bowerman

Given the state of today’s publishing industry, and the number of books being published yearly, have you considered self-publishing as an alternative to the mainstream publishers? While there are many self-published books in today’s market, the problem with many is the poor quality of the writing (lack of editing) and physical design (especially book covers). In this comprehensive book, Peter explains about what it takes to be a successful self-publisher. Incidentally, he doesn’t consider POD self-publishing, but offers up several scenarios where POD makes sense for certain books/authors.

In TWFSP, you will find information on why self-publishing might make sense, getting comfortable with the sales and marketing process, building a book, targeting buyers and building demand, building a book website, distribution, Amazon, maximizing mainstream media, article writing, radio shows, the ins and outs of live appearances, creating multiple stream of income from your book, and much more. The appendices contain self-publishing resources, info on a valuable companion marketing e-kit, a self-publishing time line, and a section of foreign rights.

The Well-Fed Self-Publisher is a complete manual for a business as a self-publisher. In today’s publishing environment, finding an agent, then waiting and hoping that your book will get published, can be a dead end. This book shows you how to do it yourself and still get your book on bookstore shelves.

Items discussed in TWFSP are the cover, how to make your self-published book compete with the mainstream publishers’ books in look, feel, and quality (books that don’t compare to those coming out of publishing houses will be hard to promote to reviewers, wholesalers, distributors, and bookstores). Especially useful is a chapter explain and demystifying the concepts of “Sales & Marketing” that terrify many authors today, but which they’ll have to learn and use to get their book into the hands of readers.

The Well-Fed Self-Publisher is a roadmap to self-publishing and getting your book into the hands of readers. This book, filled with information about the publishing industry and what authors need to accomplish in order to become a published author, is delivered in a conversational tone from someone who’s successfully self-published his books (over 50,000 copies of his first two books are in print). Check out The Well-Fed Self-Publisher “Biz-in-a-Box” Teaser in the back of the book.

This reviewer gives this book a five-star rating. If you are considering self-publishing, read this book and find out what self-publishing is about.