Wednesday, May 4, 2011

What a combination! Sumptuous strawberries and a book signing …

I’ve some breaking news regarding my writing career.

I’ll soon be doing another book signing for The Emperor’s Mistress. This one is scheduled for Saturday, May 14 at the Carolina Strawberry Festival in Wallace, N.C. I’ll be set up in the Wallace Enterprise tent in downtown Wallace.

A news story about the book signing will be going into the Wednesday, May 11 edition of the Wallace Enterprise. Hopefully, the story will generate some interest in the novel and I’ll see people dropping by the tent to buy the book. 

My last blog in March reported on my frustrating efforts to finish the second book of the Larenia’s Shadow trilogy. I was hopeful I could set aside some time during my April trip to Las Vegas to finish up editing Thief’s Coin

I know some of you are saying: You went to Vegas and worked on your book? Are you crazy? 

My girlfriend Sharon lives in Henderson just outside Vegas, and I went there to snuggle with her. Well, she had to work some of the time, so I figured I’d focus on Thief’s Coin during the hours she worked.

I managed to crank up my laptop and stay away from the slot machines in Sunset Station. A fellow author had recommended some fairly extensive edits that would require a bit of rewriting, and I managed to make those changes.

And I did get to play with Sharon down on the Vegas Strip. She got to show me all her favorite haunts…the Bellagio Fountains, the gondolas of the Venetian, the overhead light and music show on Fremont Street.

I’m now doing a final read-through on Thief’s Coin before I send it to my publisher. It would be embarrassing if a continuity disaster slipped through. I’ve just finished reading page 100. The novel is 444 pages in length.

I’ve added quite a few new Facebook friends in the last few weeks, people I worked with back at the Daily Commercial in Florida in the ‘80s and at TSI in Wilmington in the ‘90s. Hopefully some of you are taking a gander at the blog and perhaps even checking out my website.

My publisher, Wings ePress, is a small operation, and doesn’t have much of a budget for marketing its authors. We are expected to help out with marketing. I’ve done the website, this blog, and sent out news releases, but my efforts are really quite minuscule compared to what I’d like to accomplish. The job at Cape Fear Newspapers leaves me little free time.

I’ll blog again after the Strawberry Festival and let people know how the book signing went. Hopefully I’ll be able to report some nice sales. And if I’m really lucky, maybe some bookstore owners attending the festival will want to do some book signings.

1 comment:

  1. Keep trucking, Mike. You'll get there. In terms of a less demanding job, you could always explore the possibility of being a 'toy-boy' of an ageing cougar. Have I got those terms right? Not much call for toyboys or cougars in the wilds of Wales. Sheep are a different kettle of fish

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