Author: DelSheree

DelSheree Gladden was one of those shy, quiet kids who spent more time reading than talking. Literally. She didn't speak a single word for the first three months of preschool. Her fascination with reading led to many hours spent in the library and bookstores, and eventually to writing. She wrote her first novel when she was sixteen years old, but spent ten years rewriting it before having it published. Native to New Mexico, DelSheree and her family spent several years in Colorado for college and work before moving back home to be near family. When not writing novels, you can find DelSheree reading, painting, sewing, and working with other authors. DelSheree has several bestselling young adult series and has hit the USA Today Bestseller list twice as part of box sets. DelSheree also has contemporary romance, cozy mystery, and paranormal new adult series. Her writing is as varied as her reading interests.

Write. Publish. Repeat. Podcast is Back! Query Letters and Social Media with @SeriouslyGina

I was finally able to sit down with the lovely Gina Larsen aka SeriouslyGina and talk some shop. Query Letters and Social Media particularly!

Check out the second episode of Write. Publish. Repeat. Podcast to hear about Gina’s experience with writing her query, cutting down her manuscript, and using Twitter as an avenue to connect with agents and pitch her work.

Listen Now!

(Click on the WPR button below to start the podcast!)

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Get a peak at Gina’s experience on her blog: http://seriouslygina.com/2015/08/10/how-twitter-led-to-my-best-rejection-letter-to-date/

You can also find Gina on Facebook and Twitter at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Seriously-Gina/129454477147580

https://twitter.com/seriouslygina

Read more at http://writepublishrepeat.libsyn.com/query-letters-and-social-media#HIjCk8HGLcgiMyAX.99

Deadlines, Summer, and Catching Up

I like having a routine, a schedule. I don’t get things done without one.

Summer usually decreases my productivity significantly. Not just writing, but cleaning, weeding, organizing, etc. The kids are home, projects around the house and yard on going on, trips are taken, a million random things need done and distract you from your original tasks, and on and on.

79420-calendardeadlineI need deadlines.

Some people don’t work well under pressure. For me, it’s the only way I get anything done sometimes. Those deadlines might be more vague like, the kids get home by 3 o’clock. I need to finish this chapter by then and get the dishes in the dishwasher. Or they might be more concrete, like when my publisher wants edits back by a certain date.

The first half of this year we were selling and buying a house and moving. That pretty much takes up all your time. I didn’t get much writing done and release dates I had a vague imagining of drifted past unnoticed. Then summer hit. We’ve been out of town more then we’ve been in town it feels like. I had extra classes I was teaching and the kids had activities and my husband was super busy at work.

The writing I did was sandwiched in between other things and done late at night when my husband was out of town and I was too chicken to go to bed by myself. I worked on half-finished projects from last year that had been abandoned or never started, but I was scattered and distracted easily.

Blogfest Banner 28 DaysOne of the projects I wanted to get back to was The Ghost Host, but I was having a hard time focusing on it. When my good friend Apryl Baker put out the call for her annual YA/NA Blogfest this August/September (GOING ON NOW!!) my first thought was to feature something already finished. Less stress on me, right? Sure, but also a heck of a lot less projects getting wrapped up.

Even though I still had about 25% of The Ghost Host to write, not to mention revisions and editing, I signed up the Ghost Host as my featured story and told myself that whatever day Apryl gave me, that would be the pre-order release date. With as hectic as things have been lately, I knew I was taking a risk, but guess what? IT WORKED.

Echo The Ghost Host NEWAfter getting the date of Sept 2nd from Apryl, I got to work and finished the last quarter of the book in about two weeks. It’s off to beta readers now and it looks like I’ll make my pre-order date of Sept 2nd and release date of October 6th, 2015. Thanks to my awesomely talented photographer sister Kassondra Sturtevant (Mystereah Photogrpahy), I also have a new cover model and was able to finish the cover art. You can get a sneak peek of THE GHOST HOST on the YA/NA Blogfest Sept 2nd.

I’ve always known that I work better under deadlines, but I guess I’ve just been lazy about actually setting them and making myself stick to them. I have a lot to catch up on, so that’s going to change. In the hopes of being more productive, I’m going to push myself a little harder. Readers have been asking me when on earth I’m planning to release Wicked Revenge and even though I’m not going to make an October release because I already have two other books releasing that month (The Ghost Host and The Only Shark In The Sea), I am now determined to have Wicked Revenge out before Christmas.

The third Escaping Fate (Oracle Lost) has also been requested and I’m setting a firm time to have it ready by March 2016.

Somewhere in there the fourth Date Shark book (Shark In Troubled Waters) will also come out, but that one’s up to my publisher.

Torino Dreams Coming SoonSince Torino Dreams is a standalone and I only need to make a few small revisions to that one, I’m going to start prepping for an early February 2016 release.

Memory’s Edge needs a sequel and I want to release them close together, so my plan is to set a deadline of having the first draft of the sequel to beta readers by the beginning of March and to release these two in April and May 2016.

Clearly, I have a lot of work to do, but setting deadlines is going to force me to stop wasting time on Facebook and get some writing done. Wish me luck!

Cover Reveal…Almost!

Shark 3 Title BannerI just got the final copy of the cover art for THE ONLY SHARK IN THE SEA and I’m so excited to share it!!!

But not yet…

I’m setting up a cover reveal for September 8th, 2015, and if you’re willing to help me share the artwork and news about the upcoming release of the third Date Shark Series book, I’d love to have your support!

I’m doing this a little differently, though.

This cover reveal isn’t exclusive to bloggers. I’m opening it up to anyone willing to share on any social media platforms they use, so don’t be afraid to sign up if you’re not a blogger!

Check out the form below and check back on Sept. 8th for a look at the fabulous cover art for The Only Shark In The Sea!

Writing a Query Letter: Part 5

To find the first part of this series, Click HERE. For Part 2, click HERE. Part 3, click HERE Part 4, click HERE. To listen to the full discussion on the Write. Publish. Repeat. Podcast, click HERE.

Blurb Writing Tips

Research
Reads blurbs for popular books
Not a guarantee, but helpful

Direct to your reader
Different readers require different approaches

Give it time
Rewrite, revise, start over
This is important, so take your time

Cut unnecessary words
Don’t waste limited space

Get an outside opinion
**Someone who’s read the book
They can make sure you’ve include the pertinent details and stay true to the feel of your book
**Someone who hasn’t read the book
They can make sure it makes sense to an outsider

Professional resources
Paid services
Free services like Query Shark

PROOFREAD IT!!!

Keeping Track of Your Queries

QueryTracker.net
Most options are free, but you do need an account

Trusty Notebook/Word File
Sticky Notes
My personal favorite

Whatever method you choose, know the agent’s normal response time.
**Once you pass that, consider it a “No”

Follow up?
Depends on agent. Most usually have instructions on their website about whether or not to contact them for follow up. Follow their directions please!

Pacing?

How many agents should you query at a time?
**Most recommend 3-4/week

Why?
If it’s not working, you may want to change things up

Starting point?
Top or bottom of your list? — Totally up to you, but a lot of authors will recommend not starting with your top choices just in case you find out later your query needs more work.

Good luck with your query writing process and if you have any tips to share, please do!

Listen to the full discussion now on my new podcast!

Write. Publish. Repeat. Podcast: How to Write a Query Letter Without Going Completely Crazy

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Giveaway Time: Darn it, it’s already over!

This post was originally meant to announce a giveaway. A giveaway that went live two days ago on Amazon. Ten minutes after I saved this post, I got an email saying my giveaway had already ended because two many people had entered.

This is what the announcement looked like that I posted on my social media Tuesday night.

See this #AmazonGiveaway for a chance to win: Shark Out Of Water (The Date Shark Series) (Volume 2). https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/6166bc75aa616cdc NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Ends the earlier of Aug 16, 2015 11:59 PM PDT, or when all prizes are claimed. See Official Rules http://amzn.to/GArules.

Enter to win a copy of
Enter to win a copy of “Shark Out Of Water” to catch up on the series before book 3 releases Oct 6th!!

I guess I set my limit too low, but honestly, I wasn’t sure how this new feature on Amazon would go and I didn’t want to have it live for a week only to find out I had gotten ZERO entries. Self-doubt strikes again!!

It’s was nice to see the entries fill up so quickly. Next time I’ll have to up the limit and offer a few more books for you all. I have no idea who won the giveaway because Amazon keeps that confidential (rightly so!), but CONGRATS to the winner of the paperback copy of SHARK OUT OF WATER.

Book 3 THE ONLY SHARK IN THE SEA will be up for Pre-Release Sept19th and will go live Oct 6th!

Until then…

d800e-dateshark

Don’t forget, book 1 “Date Shark” is FREE on

Amazon iBooks

 You can get your own copy of “Shark Out Of Water” on:

Amazon Barnes & Noble

Google Play: God of eBooks? I think not.

Amazon gets a lot of crap for their relations with indie authors at times. In my personal dealings with Amazon, they’ve done a great job of helping me when I need help, fixing things that get screwed up, and answering questions. I don’t love every single thing about Amazon and how it works in relation to ebook publishing, but I’ve had a very good experience with them.

Play StoreEnter Google Play…

I feel like I should follow that up with a “dun, dun, dun” because the experience I just had with them certainly wasn’t pleasant nor the kind of thing that would lead me to recommend their service to, well, anyone.

What drove me to Google Play?

Many of my Wattpad readers aren’t in the US. In fact, a hefty majority of them are not. Not everyone can get on Amazon and order books. The Play store is easier for some of them to use and several mentioned their parents had set up monthly allowances for them on the Play store and they could buy my books there if only they were available. So, I went on a search to figure out how to add my books to the Play store.

That seriously took forever. The setup when I first looked into it was ridiculously complicated and the system was pretty buggy. I gave up after a while. Recently though, I got asked again if my books were on the Play store and re-investigated. Surprisingly, the platform had improved enough that I could at least get through the process of adding all my books.

Done, right?

Not quite.

The last few months I’ve noticed my sales figures on Amazon dropping bit by bit. That happens pretty much every summer, so I didn’t think much of it at first. But it kept dropping.

This summer has been super busy for our family so I wasn’t paying great attention to what was going on with my books on Amazon until I went in to setup and price my Aerling Box Set and realized several of my books were being pretty steeply discounted on Amazon.

Given that I hadn’t changed the price on any other platform for Amazon to price match, I wondered what on earth was going on? I shot off an email to Amazon asking what the deal was, and as always they sent me back a quick reply saying the book in question was currently discounted more than $1 (That’s a lot in ebooks) on…you guessed it…Google Play store.

So, of course, my next online stop was my Play account to figure out how the price had gotten changed. Hacker? Kids playing around when I left my computer on? Magic?

Question MarkThe answer…?

Google Play Store itself. Yep. They apparently think of themselves as the GOD of ebook publishing. Every single one of my books that wasn’t already free had been discounted between 0.50 and $1. You can bet I was pissed. A quick internet search and a Facebook post brought back some interesting answers.

Buried inside the user agreement for the Play store it says, Play gets to price your content however it wants. You can set your own price, sure, but they’re going to ignore it. Thinking, surely that can’t be true, because what kind of company tells their content producers that sure you can sell your stuff with us, but we get to pick the price and you just have to live with it even if it negatively affects your sales with other merchants?

Surely not, right?

Surely YES.

When I opened up a chat session with customer service and put the question about the discounting straight to them, their answer was, “WE’RE GOOGLE. WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT.”

Okay, that wasn’t the exact wording, but it was indeed the answer to my question. NO they would not change the price back. NO they would not compensate for royalties lost because Amazon price matched them. NO they didn’t care that this might be an adverse effect of their pricing policy. NO. Just NO.

My answer to them?

NO

See ya later Google!

I pulled all my books as soon as I closed the chat and I will no longer be offering any of my books on the Play store or any platform that so blatantly disregards and takes advantage of the people providing them with content. I’m far from the only person who’s had to deal with this–as I found out after posting the question on Facebook–and I won’t be the last.

I know I’m not the kind of author who can say, DON’T sell your books on Google Play and suddenly everyone will abandon it, but I help authors get started in indie or hybrid publishing fairly often. I teach publishing and writing class at our local community college–which I know isn’t a huge deal–but you can bet I will never again include Play as a legitimate and worthwhile publishing platform in my recommendations or classes.

Thank you for the lesson learned Google Play.

The Invisible Initiative #InvisibleInitiative

Authors always get asked about idea inspiration and where they came up with concepts for their books. I’ve gotten that with “Invisible” and I haven’t really had a good answer because there wasn’t anything particular that sparked the idea. It was more of a musing or random thought that stuck and morphed into a story.

Almost two years later, when I think about “Invisible” now and the reasons behind writing it and what I put into it on a personal level, it’s more about the message than the inspiration. Growing up, there were plenty of times I felt invisible in my own family, in school, and in church even. I was quiet, shy, and not very outgoing unless I new someone well. The initial idea for “Invisible” may be vague, but as I was writing Mason’s side of the story in particular, I felt myself putting a lot of my own feelings and experiences into the book. It’s painful to feel invisible. It affects you.

It often takes someone else to pull you out of that bubble and show you what you can’t see about yourself on your own. I had that experience with a good friend of mine as a teenager and I can honestly say it made a huge impact on my life. Amy Brimhall and I are both back living in the same town, and even though work and busy family lives don’t let us get together very often right now, I often think about her and how she impacted me by the simple gesture of offering to pick me up for school in the morning and being a friend when I needed one.

Thinking about this a lot as I was getting the Aerling Series box set put together this last week, I wanted to pass on how much other people’s support has meant to me so they know that their friendship hasn’t gone unnoticed, that they aren’t invisible either.

My challenge is for you to do the same thing. Pick a few people who have made a difference in your life and share that with them. Feel free to use the image below to share on their Facebook wall or Twitter feed along with why your sharing it with them. Let them know their presence in your life has made a difference. They may have no idea and it may be your chance to return the favor when they might need it most. No one should feel invisible.

#InvisibleInitiative Share this image with someone who has impacted you so they know their friendship hasn't gone unnoticed.
  #InvisibleInitiative Share this image with someone who has impacted you so they know their friendship hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Not So Wordless Wednesday: D. Nicole King’s Always Series @dNicholeKing

I don’t typically share a lot of promotions on my blog, but I couldn’t help sharing D. Nicole King’s new bookmarks I just finished up for her Love Always Series.

Love Always Series by D. Nicole King
Love Always Series by D. Nicole King
Love Always Series by D. Nicole King
Love Always Series by D. Nicole King

Writing a Query Letter: Part 4

To find the first part of this series, Click HERE. For Part 2, click HERE. Part 3, click HERE. To listen to the full discussion on the Write. Publish. Repeat. Podcast, click HERE.

Query Writing Tips

Now that you have the basics down, how do you actually write a GOOD query letter?

The blurb/summary is going to be a HUGE part of your pitch and often requires the most attention and revisions.

The next section will go over tips and tricks for writing a query letter that will grab an agent’s or publisher’s attention.

Open Blue BookWhen to write the Blurb?

Before or After?
Depends on the author

Before
Why would you do this?
Not as emotionally invested yet.
Not EVERYTHING feels important.
Focus your thoughts on the story highlights.
Which can help with writing.
Saves you from having to do it later.
Allows you to promote early.

After
Have the full concept in place.

Avoid having to rewrite due to plot changes.

Better idea of future plans.

Anatomy of a Blurb

Situation/Character intro

Problem/Conflict

Hope of Resolution

Tone/Mood

Invisible CastSituation/Character Intro

Jump in right away.
Situation and Character intro right away.
No wasting time with description/thought.
Intro the setting as well.

Who is this story about?
What situation makes their story interesting?

First sentence should introduce both.

Make them interesting!
YOU know them well, so present them in the best, most interesting light

Example:

“In 1938, a small crooked-legged racehorse received more press coverage than Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt or any other news figure.”(Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand)

Don’t mislead!
If they start reading and it doesn’t hold up…they’ll put it down

Depressed young homeless womanProblem or Conflict

A hint of the plot…
What challenge is your MC up against?
Simplify as much as possible.There may be multiple conflicts that all seem important.
Focus on the MAIN conflict.

How is this conflict going to hurt/hinder your character?
Again…simplify to the main points. Pick the biggest, most detrimental effect to focus on in the blurb

The blurb is a teaser. Hook the agent/pub…leave them wanting more. This is usually better accomplished in a short blurb.

Some like to end on a question (but not a rule)
“As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate éclair?”(Chocolat, Joanne Harris)

“Lisbeth Salander—outcast…enigma…avenger…”(The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson)

End on a cliffhanger!

HopeHope of Resolution

Don’t be too depressing!

How will your character potentially thwart all the trouble the conflict is brewing?

Don’t reveal the end of the story, but DO suggest a possible escape.

Make readers want to solve the problem.

Tone and Mood

The tone or mood of your query should match the book.

Fun, dark, moody, silly, inspirational, etc.

Let readers know what is in store for them so they know what they’re getting into.

Join me next week for the final part of the Query Writing Workshop. Tips & Tricks, tracking queries, and query pacing.

Listen to the full discussion now on my new podcast!

Write. Publish. Repeat. Podcast: How to Write a Query Letter Without Going Completely Crazy

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Is Summer Over Yet?

The family and I have had a lot of fun this summer…

Those who follow me on social media have probably gotten sick of pictures from our Denver adventures, hiking, frisbee golfing, camping, dinosaur bones, and working on our basement. I’m sure they’re glad I held back on photos of the splash pad, weeding the monstrous weeds that keep springing up thanks to the unseasonable rain, or all the other random activities. It’s been a crazy busy, but fun summer, but it’s winding down and I think we’re all just about ready to get back to our regular schedules.

This is what we all feel like by this point, lol!
This is what we all feel like by this point, lol!

What’s on the schedule for fall?

An equally busy schedule. My son is joining track and First Lego League, my daughter will be back into soccer soon, they both need swimming lessons, my husband is planning to start a podcast (which I’m really excited about!), I’ve got classes to teach, plus our usual day jobs, and hopefully a family vacation to Disneyland!

What’s on the writing schedule?

Finish up the final details of the AERLING SERIES BOX SET (releasing August 15th).

Finish and prep THE GHOST HOST for release (Sept 2 pre-order, full release Oct 13th).

Get to work on (AND finish) WICKED REVENGE.

Pre-Order (Sept 22) and Release (Oct 6) of THE ONLY SHARK IN THE SEA.

Turn in final draft of SHARK IN TROUBLED WATERS (first week of August, release date pending).

At some point work on various other projects like “Eliza Carlisle Mystery,” “Humanity Chronicles,” unnamed paranormal NA book I will eventually figure out a name for, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten about by now.

What are your plans for the fall?