Imajin Books

Farley’s Friday: A Proofreading Dog

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 7 Comments

Farley here.

I’m getting a bit jealous of Kristina’s writing. She spends more time “working” than walking me. When we lived in the Bahamas we were off the boat by 7 am at the latest, and would meet our friend for life, Debi. She’s a human, not a dog, but still my friend. We’d go for a long beach run. Then the ladies would do yoga or work out on the beach while I relaxed in the shade.

Now this is what I get to do.

Farley reading DESCENT

Kristina thinks I can proofread. If I wag may tail once, it means all is good. If I whine, I’ve found a mistake.  My day starts with an hour of reading while Kristina markets her book, whatever that means.

She’s hosting a Facebook Launch Party for her debut novel, DESCENT, on July 25th from 3-6 pm EST. There will be prizes – meaning authors are giving away books to the lucky people who are the first to answer a trivia question. I can’t tell you what the questions are because she won’t tell me. Come by and say hello to me, Farley, and you could win a book! Just click here to join.

Woof Woof

DESCENT LAUNCH PARTY: July 25th, 2015

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

Who are the mystery authors donating books to DESCENT’s Facebook launch party?

This is all part of the publishing cycle – host a launch party. To energize the party and make it exciting for virtual visitors, I asked other authors to donate one or two of their novels as prizes.

So not to keep you in suspense, in alphabetical order, the contributors are…

But what books will they donate? That’s a mystery to be solved on another blog. Stay tuned…

When is the Facebook launch party? July 25th, 3-6 PM EST. You are invited and most welcome to join us to help celebrate. Come and win a book from one of the amazing authors!

DESCENT is now available for pre-order in eBook format. The paperback will follow shortly.

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and will blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Please feel free to share this post and help me get the word out.

Thanks for reading…

DESCENT Coming Soon!

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 10 Comments

I have butterflies in my stomach. Years of hard work and a dream has led to this…Imajin Books has announced DESCENT’s release date: July 25, 2015.

The full cover of DESCENT designed by Ryan Doan…Ta Da!

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000040_00072]

Can this really be happening?

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and will blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading…

The Unveiling…of…DESCENT

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

Holy Excitement Batman!

The cover for DESCENT is in. I’ve seen it and love it. Today I can share a little piece, just a sneak preview, so you can see what’s coming. This is the bottom quarter of the front cover.

Screen Shot 2015-06-22 at 7.00.09 AM

Later this week, I’ll have the pleasure of sharing the whole cover and the launch date. How cool is that? The good news just keeps arriving from Imajin books.

Now the scary part begins. I have to get my online platform ready. Just so you’d don’t think I’m loafing around this week, here’s what I’ll be doing.

  • post cover in all the relevant places
  • set up and invite people to a Facebook launch party
  • set up a blog hop
  • update author sites (such as Goodreads and Author’s Den)
  • confirm book signing events for later in the summer
  • contact our local paper about an article
  • and just to keep me on my toes, I’m polishing Avalanche, the third novel in the Stone Mountain Series.

I’ll keep a list of marketing activities to share with you and by the end of the process, we should have good to-do list for launching a book. You know me – I love to have a list. Of course, please let me know if you have ideas to add to the list.

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and will blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading…

Imajin Books Summer Sizzle

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment

You are invited…

Oh, yeah! It’s that time of year again and Imajin Books (soon to publish DESCENT and BLAZE)  is gearing up for its annual Summer Sizzles promotion.Things really heat up with the Summer Sizzles facebook party on Sunday, July 12 from 4 – 8 pm PDT (7 – 11 pm Eastern).

Here’s the link for all the info. https://www.facebook.com/events/484341911728130/

https://www.facebook.com/events/484341911728130/
You are invited to attend so visit the event page and click the join button so we know to expect you!

Who will all be there?

Almost the entire Imajin Books crew will participate, from publisher to editors to authors to cover designers, formatters….

Fans of Imajin Books’ authors will be there, eager to ask their fave writers questions and offer support and compliments.

Aspiring writers will be there, schmoozing with those in the industry, asking questions, giving answers.

Other authors will be there.

Family and friends will stop by.

People who like winning things will be there–there are always lots of giveaways.

Those who love drinking virtual margaritas on virtual sunny beaches will drop by. Don’t worry, there will be free virtual taxi service for those who overimbibe! HA HA!

Come on over, join in the fun! If you’ve never attended a facebook party, this is the one to change that!

Thanks to Eileen Schuh, author of of THE TRAZ, THE TRAZ School Edition and FATAL ERROR),  for putting this blog together.

Relax – It’s only a photo shoot!

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 9 Comments

Now that I’ve signed what Imajin Books I need an author photo.

I chose to work with a professional photographer local to my area. We met before the shoot and discussed the image I wanted to portray. I’ve used an image of myself with Farley for the last 6 years and love the photo, but thought it was time for an update.

My first decision was with or without Farley. Poor Farley got bumped. I liked the photo of the two of us because I thought it portrayed who I am and what my life is about. I’m sad to let this photo go, but it’s time to set a new image. I wanted my new author photo taken outdoors in a natural setting, and I wanted to come across as approachable and friendly. My novels take place in the BC wilderness, so my photo should portray the setting too.

The photographer, Kimberly Rae Sanderson, made me feel comfortable right away. I was nervous and needed to relax if the photos were to be any good.  We met at Lake Lillian, a small lake in the Purcell Mountains. We chose early evening so the lighting was soft – translate to I’d look better 🙂

When the shoot was over, Kimberly sent me 98 photos to choose from.  Here are the two I liked best.

KristinaStanley-24 KristinaStanley-75

I’ll use the portrait on the inside back cover of my novels. I plan to use the black and white photo in various places on the internet. As usual, I now have to find all the spots where Farley and I have been posted on the internet and replace the old photo with my new photo.

It’s fun, all the things that come with writing a novel.

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and will blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading…

 

 

How to Blog Hop

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 6 Comments

Imajin Books asked me to host a blog hop as part of publishing DESCENT.  Of course I said yes. So now I have to figure out how to do this.

First, I needed a goal for the blog hop. I’m currently blogging about my publishing experience, and every day I discover there is more to learn. A priority for me is learning more about marketing a book, and this is how I came up with my goal.

Blog Hop Goal

To  improve my knowledge of marketing a book.

To share that knowledge with other writers.

Blog Hop Theme:

Based on the goal, I’m going to ask other bloggers to answer one simple question.

What is the most important book-marketing  tip you can give other writers who are about to publish a novel or who have recently published a novel?

Who am you going to ask?

The importance of building a network rises to the top of the to-do pile once a again. Long before you publish, you need to have a network of people who can participate in your launch and people who you can help in return. As you can see, I’m using this blog to encourage participation. I will also contact other authors personally via LinkedIn, Facebook, and email.

Why would other bloggers join the blog hop?

As with most things, it’s best to give something to people who participate. The participating bloggers should answer the marketing question at the top of their blog.  The blogger can follow the answer with a promotion of their novel in whatever style they feel is appropriate. The blog hop is about marketing after all.. Not published yet? How about promoting your upcoming novel or your blog?

Now to the technology behind a blog hop or blog party.

Linky Things:

I use WordPress (obviously) so I’ll use a tool recommended for WP. You may need something else. LinkyTools and InLinkz are two options. InLinkz has a good blog post on How to Throw A Successful Blog Party, so I won’t go into details on that topic, but I do have to decide if I should do both a blog hop and a blog party. See HandMadeTechnology for a description of how blog hops and blog parties differ.

I’m not sure yet which one I’ll go with. Any advice?

Test blog: One tip on the InLinkz site is to create a test blog site. I plan to use this, so I can practice, make a mess and get it right before I post to this site. I understand Linky Things don’t go live until the post is published, hence the test site.

If you’re interested in joining this blog hop, I plan to run it sometime in July when DESCENT is published.  Just comment below and let me know. Or access my Contact Information  and send me a private message.

Let me stress, I am new to this blog hop experience, so please share any advice you have on how to host a successful blog hop.

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and will blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading…

The Editing Process: Getting Your Manuscript Ready For Proofreading.

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 13 Comments

Todd Barselow, senior editor at Imajin Books, has just sent me his first pass at editing DESCENT and had this to say:

“My life would be so much easier if all the manuscripts that crossed my desk were as clean as yours.”

Wasn’t I surprised to find such a great comment and to find I didn’t have too much work to do revising the manuscript. As you know, the ARC for DESCENT went out last week, so I was pleased not too much would change.

How did I get to this point?

Yesterday, before my first coffee,  I opened my email and found the edited version of DESCENT waiting in my inbox. I have to admit I was nervous, so I finished my coffee, ate breakfast, walked the dog and when I could procrastinate no further, I opened the attachment.

The editing process went like this:

  • Imajin Books gave us a deadline of early May to complete the edits and send DESCENT to the proofreader.
  • Todd and I must both read the manuscript three times (minimum).
  • Todd reads once and sends DESCENT back to me labelled V1.
  • I accept/reject any proposed changes – it’s a good idea to learn how to use the review section in MSWord as this seems to be the industry standard for editing right now.
  • I send the manuscript back to Todd as V2, and we repeat the process two more times.

This may seem like a lot work, but I think it’s worth the effort if it means a better manuscript.

I would have sworn my manuscript was error free. But alas, it was not so. What did Todd suggest? What errors did he find? I’ve summarized a few items below, so you’ll get an overview.

  • Be consistent with the Oxford comma. I don’t use them, and somehow a few slipped into the manuscript.
  • Replace a period with a question mark. This happened in two places even though I know how to use a question mark.
  • Add an exclamation mark. I didn’t use any, and Todd suggested two be added in the climax scene to increase tension.
  • Too, to, two: Jokes on me. I used ‘to’, instead of ‘two’ in chapter two.
  • Be consistent with hyphens and follow Chicago Manual Of Style.  These are hard errors to catch, but he found a few.
  • Tiny words… ‘as’ instead of ‘if’, missing ‘of’, and reach missing the ‘ed’
  • Dialogue.  When addressing people, use a comma after Hi. “Hi, Donny.” is the correct form in dialogue.

That should give you an idea of how detailed the edit is. For the sake of not boring you, I didn’t include everything.

To get the manuscript to a place where Todd praised it, I followed the process as outlined in the For Writers section of my webpage.

I think you’re getting my point…It’s a large, okay huge, shall we say ginormous amount of work to polish a completed manuscript.

Gotta say thanks to the talented Todd Barselow for his eagle eye and for making my novel better!

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and will blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading…

Advance Reader Copy (ARC)

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 17 Comments

I’m sure everyone knows all about the ARC, but being a newbie, I learned a few things this week.

I learned the ARC is used to garner endorsements that go on both the outside and inside cover of the novel and are used for marketing.

I learned that the ARC gets sent before the final editing and proofreading of the manuscript is complete. Does that make me nervous? You bet, but I guess it’s standard in the industry, so I’ll go with it.

I learned that networking long before you finish your first novel is critical to the publishing journey.

Imajin Books requested I get endorsements from 5 to 7 authors in my genre. Mystery, in case you’re wondering. So I set out to do just that.

How does one find established authors willing to spend their time reading an about-to-be-published-for-the-first-time author’s novel? That’s where networking comes in.

I’ve attended writing conferences, workshops and  awards dinners. Each of these gave me a way to meet other authors. I started a blog. Got active on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.

When I first joined the Crime Writers of Canada, I sent every CWC author a LinkedIn message asking them to connect with me. Hundreds did. I was amazed. I kept a spreadsheet of the authors I’d sent a message to, which ones accepted my invitation and included a check mark when I sent a thank you. Since then, I’ve kept up communication with authors, sending them a message when I’d read their book and posted a review.

Who to ask? I chose authors that I had some connection with. Either I’d met them in person, or I’d connected with them on the internet. I looked for authors where our writing had something in common.

I wrote a letter to each author as I would a query letter. I included my writing credentials and the reason I was asking a specific author.  I was nervous, but people are saying yes. I won’t tell you who yet. Part of asking is the condition that if they don’t like the book, I wouldn’t expect an endorsement. So now I have to wait… Writing seems to be a lot of waiting.

The following is included at the front of the ARC, and is followed by the novel. A PDF version goes to each author who has agreed to read Descent.

DESCENT

A Stone Mountain Mystery #1

ADVANCED READING COPY

Uncorrected Galley Proof

Kristina Stanley

DESCENT

A Stone Mountain Mystery #1

Copyright © 2015 by Kristina Stanley. All Rights Reserved.

IF YOU RECEIVED THIS BOOK FREE VIA A WEBSITE DOWNLOAD ON A SHARE OR TORRENT SITE, YOU HAVE AN ILLEGAL COPY AND CAN BE PROSECUTED FOR COPYRIGHT THEFT.

Copyright is a matter we take seriously. Our authors and our publishing team work hard to produce quality books for people who will appreciate them. We often have discounts and sales so that ANYONE CAN AFFORD OUR EBOOKS.

 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. And any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead (or in any other form), business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

http://www.kristinastanley.com

FIRST EDITION Kindle eBook

Imajin Books – http://www.imajinbooks.com

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and intend to blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I received the first version of the book cover. I’ll share as soon as it’s done 🙂

Acknowledgement Tracking: When Writing Your Novel(s)

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 10 Comments

The closer DESCENT becomes to being published, the more work there seems to be.

When the manuscript is being prepared for print or e-book versions, there are sections on the inside that need writing. It’s all fun writing a novel or two, but do you remember who helped you along the way?

The time is close to when I have to commit to my acknowledgment section, and I’m a little stressed. What if I miss someone? Did I thank the right people?

So many people helped me write, and it took me four years to finish four novels. For some reason, I decided to keep a spreadsheet with who helped me on each novel. This includes beta readers, proofreaders, anyone who helped me with research, and of course family. At the time, I laughed at myself, but now I’m glad I did.

So I have my list, I’ve written the acknowledgement section, and I have one more question.

Do I ask people ahead of time if they are ok with being in print, or do I surprise them?

What’s your opinion?

If you haven’t read my blog before, I’ve signed on with Imajin Books and intend to blog about my publishing adventure. I’ll share what I learn and hope it helps someone out there get their novel published.

Thanks for reading.