Tag: Books

What, it’s July already!

I don’t know about you, but for me time is flying! It seems like just yesterday it was Christmas and now we’re halfway to Christmas again. Guess it’s like my grandmother always said, time flies when you’re having fun.

Today as I sit here working on my latest manuscript I have to say I’m excited. As you know I am working on Chase and my historical romance, but I also have a surprise coming. It’s something totally out of my usual realm so I’m keeping it hush hush for a little longer. Let’s just say you’ll be pleasantly surprised, I hope.

What are you planning for July? Me, well we’re putting hardwood throughout our house starting in the next week. Yep, I said we’re doing it. I’m actually excited because we’re doing this as a family project. Thank goodness it’s a inside project because of the summer heat. I can’t wait to get a hammer in my hand and get to work. Well, I guess I’ll be allowed to hammer, but more than likely I’ll be handing wood to my hubby and son. Sometimes me and tools don’t work out so well.

Do you have some exciting plans for the 4th? I’m lazing away the day at the lake with family and food.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook and my website for continued updates on my surprise!

https://www.facebook.com/StephaniePayneHurt

www.stephaniehurtauthor.com

Tuesday morning glance at the past…

This morning I’m taking a look back at how things have changed in the self publishing world since I started in 2012. It’s amazing how it fluctuates. So many main stream traditionally published authors have gone back to self publishing and are enjoying the freedom that it provides.

Self publishing has come into it’s own in the last three years or at least in my opinion. There are more sites to place your books and they are more widely accepted. When I first put my books on Smashwords.com the distributors list was a lot shorter and now you can have your books spread out far and wide. Also, several traditional publishers are jumping on the bandwagon and looking at it differently.

The amount of self published books is phenomenal and the amount of best selling self published books has rose along with it. Now a self published book can actually go to the top without the hand of an agent or big publisher pushing it. Traditional publishing has it’s good points too. But for some of us starting out or maybe that have already been there, we’re venturing out and testing the waters first.

So, what’s your opinion on the growth of self publishing? Are you traditionally published or self published? Maybe you’re both…

As always, great writing and May God Bless You…

Word Count & Scrivener

Good Saturday morning! Here in Georgia it’s simply gorgeous with the sun shining and the temps comfortable. Makes me want to go outside and sit the rest of the day writing. But my house needs an overhaul 😉 That doesn’t mean that I won’t end up out there with my laptop.

I’m working on two manuscripts at the moment. Of course ‘Chase’ is one of them and then I’m also working on a new Christian Historical Romance, but that one will be discussed at a later date. As for writing, I’ve been trying to get in my daily word count and then some. Since the stories are flowing pretty steadily lately, it helps me to stay focused.

One thing that is helping with my writing lately is a program that I’m trying out. Have you tried out Scrivener yet? Several authors have suggested the program to me, but until now I’ve been using word mostly. So about a month or so ago I decided to test the waters and I’ve not looked back yet.

This program incorporates my trusty outlines and character lists into the same screen as my manuscript. I can keep it all at my fingertips at all time. Better yet as a new character is created I can simply add them to the list and never skip a beat. I’ve even got the outlines typed out for a couple of story ideas for later in the year.

What’s fun is with my 5 Oaks Ranch series I can copy my character list over to the next book. That way I don’t have to keep going back to the books before and search out a character. Let’s just say I love this program and highly suggest trying it out. They offer a trial version so that you can make sure it fits in with your way of writing.

Well, I better get back to mopping my kitchen and doing laundry because it won’t do itself. Also the sooner it’s done, the sooner me and my laptop can head out to sit on the deck and get lost in another world, if just for a while.

So, what are you up to today? Hope it’s fun…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

So much water under the bridge, Ghost Love is 3!

Ghost Lover Advertising

Good morning everyone! I do hope you’re having a wonderful morning, for some of you a wonderful afternoon, maybe even early evening. Well today’s a special day for this writer, it’s the 3 year anniversary of Ghost Lover being published. I’m a proud mama for sure.

Ghost Lover came about a long time ago in my head and was originally named ‘Can This be Real’. But once I was ready to edit the final draft Ghost Lover came into my mind and the name was cemented in my writing history. It’s been a crazy ride since I hit the publish button on this one. There’s been 3 covers, yes 3.

book cover Ghost Love front cover GhostLover2

Yep, that first one, well let’s just say it didn’t last long. I fell immediately in love with the second one, then of course I fell over my own feet with the third one. As the book evolved, so did the cover. The third cover goes with the revised, 2nd edition which I published several months ago. I’ve grown as a writer over the last three years and realized that Ghost Lover needed a more detailed edit.

Here’s a few fun facts about Ghost Lover.

1: It was written over ten years ago under the name ‘Can This Be Real’.

2: This was the first book to make me cry and laugh in the same paragraph. Yep, this book touched me.

3: I received my first call from a big publishing house with this one. Actually I had two call me wanting me to republish this one under their name. As you can see, I didn’t. I stuck to my guns and held strong.

4: This book went International and did really well which totally blew my mind as a new writer.

5: I still have a book cowboy crush on Jared. He’s some kind of gentleman and still makes my head spin.

If you haven’t read Ghost Lover then now’s the best time. For a limited time it’s on sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble for .99. Yes, I said .99! I want everyone to fall in love with Jared and Jess, the couple that started my writing career. I’m forever grateful.

So, have you fell in love with a cowboy lately? If not, then check out Jared. He’ll steal your heart and lock it away forever…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Anniversary sale

Downhill slide…

Good morning! It’s a sunny morning here in Georgia. The sun is streaming through the trees and into the windows as I sit here writing. It’s been a productive morning so far. My exercise is completed, my breakfast eaten and 2000 words typed into my manuscript. Yes, Oakley is almost done.

This book has been really fun to work on. I’ve enjoyed writing all of my books, but there’s something about this series that really pulls at me. I think it’s the fact that the whole story of each of the five siblings actually is already in my head. It sounds crazy but it’s true. Of course I do have the filler material to put together and that’s the time consuming part.

Let me introduce you to Oakley, the cowboy, the man. He’s such a old spirit with his old fashioned way of thinking. His heart is filled with compassion and so much kindness. As he goes about trying to understand his brother, Ridge’s decision to hire a woman as a ranch hand, he struggles with other feelings that start up.

Keep watching for updates on Oakley and the release date will be announced possibly this week. Also, with the upcoming release of Oakley, I’m giving away 5 copies of Ridge over at Goodreads. Here’s the link: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/137212-ridge

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Don’t push that button!

It’s Friday people and it’s time to celebrate the weekend, well almost time. For me it’s already the weekend. I’m taking a couple of days off to get over the 12 hour days for the last three months. But of course I’m writing and working on publishing things that have been left out in the cold for too long.

Since I’m working on the finishing touches of Oakley, my mind goes to deciding when to publish. Well sometimes we get so excited about our finished manuscript that our need to get it out there for everyone overrides the fact that we’ve left off a couple of needed steps.

When you publish a manuscript you have a responsibility to your reader to make sure the work is polished and pretty… Have you read over the work. Have you read over it more than once? Are you feeling really good about the finished product? When I get my work completely finished and edited I have this feeling of “Yes it’s as it should be” and that’s when I hit the button. If I have any doubts I read over it again and usually I find something that I missed the other times. It’s worth the time.

So, make sure you feel good about the finished manuscript, not just excited that it’s finished. It’s your work, shouldn’t you want it to be the best it can be?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Oh it’s easy, anybody can do it…

Good morning all, hope all is well with you. As a writer I often hear someone say when they hear I’m a writer, “Oh it’s easy, anybody can do it. I need to write a book.” My response is always, “Go for it.” I try to encourage people to write if that’s what they want to do. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Writing is easy enough, but getting a manuscript down that could be published isn’t as easy. Most people can sit down and write many pages of a story, but can they make it stand out. A manuscript needs to make a statement. You need to have a start, a middle story and an ending. It may sound easy, but it’s not.

Here are a couple of things to think about before you start your novel:

1 – Are you willing to put in the time it will take to get it right? A novel isn’t written in a day.

2 – Writing the words isn’t the only step, you’ll need to edit, edit, and edit some more.

3 – The story will need to stand out in the crowd and I mean stand out. Remember you’re not the only one in the field.

4 – After it’s written, edited and ready for publishing, you’ve got more steps to go. Now you need a blurb, or rather you need the description that will make people want to buy your book. To me this is the hardest part of the whole process. In just as little as two paragraphs you’ve got to sell your book. Sound easy, well try it sometime.

5 – Then of course you’ve got to make the book look really good by designing an eye catching cover. This is the selling point of your hard work. Some people buy a book just from the cover so make it shine brightly and call out to your reader.

This is only a few points, but you get where I’m going with this. Writing is one of the most rewarding and heart wrenching things you can do.

As always good writing and May God Bless You…