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Some Thoughts on my Forthcoming Novel 'Not Famous'

Some Thoughts on my Forthcoming Novel ‘Not Famous’

It’s gonna be a busy few weeks, getting ready for the launch, and an even busier time trying to get people to read Not Famous. But, I’ve been thinking about a bunch of things, and thought I’d share them. It took me seven years to finish the first draft of my novel. Most of that time was honestly not spent working on it, but that long period of time from start to completion gave me plenty of…

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Five Essential Lad Lit Novels

Five Essential Lad Lit Novels

Lad lit is a fictional genre of male-authored novels about young men and their emotional and personal lives, often characterized by a confessional and humorous writing style. It often falls under the romantic comedy genre. What? Male-written romance? Yes, it’s a thing. And while it’s arguably targeted towards men, lots of women read it, too. The question is, where do you start if you’ve never…

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My Writing Journey with Storyist

My Writing Journey with Storyist

For a while now, I’ve been using Scrivener for my novel writing. Originally, I was using Google Docs in combination with Microsoft Word. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but at the time, I wasn’t a big fan of writing apps. I’d played with Scrivener in trial mode, and found it intimidating. But, eventually, I did end working with Scrivener, and found the features to be quite useful. The only problem…

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1-Star Reviews From My Favorite Novels

1-Star Reviews From My Favorite Novels

Reviews are very important to indie authors. In many ways, they’re more important than sales. While I’m hardly getting rich off of my novels, the reviews I’ve received on Amazon and Goodreads represent a small fraction of my sales. As of this blog post, my first novel, Not Famous, has only 119 ratings on Goodreads, and 56 ratings on Amazon. Of those ratings, only a fraction have reviews along…

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I Tried LivingWriter... Will it Replace Scrivener?

I Tried LivingWriter… Will it Replace Scrivener?

By accident, I discovered a writing app pitched as the best alternative to Scrivener called LivingWriter. I’ve been using Scrivener for a while now, and after being initially overwhelmed by all its features, I found myself liking the aspects of the software that I chose to use. That said, its interface is dated, and switching to an alternative has never been off the table. So, I decided to do a…

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'Not Awkward' is coming on August 24!

‘Not Awkward’ is coming on August 24!

Okay, well, 2020 was an interesting year. Soon after the release of my second novel, Not Dressed, there was a global pandemic, and many of us went in lockdown. While this sounds like prime opportunity to do a lot of writing, in reality, it took me a long time to get “in the zone.” Eventually, I did get in the zone and started writing my third novel. In fact, after a while of starting that, I…

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Not Famous… Two Years Later

Not Famous… Two Years Later

Two years ago today, my first novel, Not Famous, was published. It’s hard to even think about it as a two-year-old novel when it actually took more than seven years to complete from first inception to publication. But, yes, it has been two years since Not Famous was made available to the public. The tremendous effort it took to complete my first novel made me wonder if I could even write…

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A Playlist for 'Not Famous'

A Playlist for ‘Not Famous’

Earlier this month I was made aware of a Spotify playlist that had been created by a reader of Not Famous. I checked it out and was very impressed by it.

https://twitter.com/lit_tracks0/status/1312453951074172928

I asked @lit_tracks0 about the process of creating the playlist. “While I’m reading a book I’ll start to get inklings of music I’m associating and begin compiling. There are times it…

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Working on Novel #3

Working on Novel #3

Okay, well, it’s been a while since I’ve added anything to this blog, so I’ve decided it’s time for an update.

The biggest thing going on right now is that I am working on my third novel. I planned to start it not long after Not Dressed was released, but I needed time to think over the new story for a while, how I wanted to structure it, and you know, let everything congeal for a while.

Th…

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Sequels aren't my thing, but...

Sequels aren’t my thing, but…

After finishing my first novel, Not Famous, it was difficult to get my head out of the world I’d just created, and it was sad to leave those characters. I used to say that I could have made the novel twice or three times a large because of how much I wanted to explore those characters more.

Of course, there were also thoughts of a sequel. And why not? With a sequel I could just continue the…

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Enter to Win a Free Copy of 'Not Famous' on Audiobook!

Enter to Win a Free Copy of ‘Not Famous’ on Audiobook!

I’ve very excited to announced that as you read this, my debut novel, Not Famous, is being produced as an audiobook! Recording should be finished by the end of February!

I can’t wait for this audiobook to be available, and I hope audiobook lovers out there are looking forward to it! I’ve decided that I will give away a free copy of the audiobook once it’s ready to one lucky person. Click hereor…

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The Book Cover Evolution of 'Not Famous'

The Book Cover Evolution of ‘Not Famous’

Almost as long as I was writing Not Famous I was thinking about its cover. I tried coming up with my own and that really didn’t work out so well. In fact, those cover concepts were so embarrassing I recently deleted them.

Because of that experience I decided that a photographic cover was probably the way to go. I knew this was a departure from the types of covers you usually expect from lad lit…

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COVER REVEAL: Not Famous #CoverReveal #LadLit #RomCom

COVER REVEAL: Not Famous #CoverReveal #LadLit #RomCom

Yesterday, I challenged my Twitter followers to retweet a special tweet, and if it got enough, I would reveal the cover for Not Famous today—three days early.  Well, the challenge was successful, and, as promised, the cover for Not Famous will be revealed, right here, right now:

(more…)

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Getting Ready To Publish 'Not Famous'

Getting Ready To Publish ‘Not Famous’

The final version of the manuscript  is now being formatted for paperback and ebook. I’ve also started the process of getting my novel set up on Amazon’s KDP publishing platform. I even have an ISBN! In other words, after more than seven years (on and off) of working on this novel, publication is in sight!

I’ve got just over two months now before publication on January 15, 2019. On November 1,…

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Coming November 1: The Cover Reveal of 'Not Famous'

Coming November 1: The Cover Reveal of ‘Not Famous’

I’ve struggled quite a bit with the question of when to reveal the cover art for my novel, Not Famous. Publication is set for January 15, 2019, but deciding when to reveal the cover had me at a loss. When is the right time? I sought out lots of advice, and heard different opinions on the matter. Based on all that advice, I discovered something: there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Every book,…

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My Novel Has Now Been Proofread!

My Novel Has Now Been Proofread!

Well, my proofreader took less time than expected! I got the manuscript for Not Famous back yesterday.  There were quite a few minor grammatical corrections! Over the next week I plan to go through the manuscript, approve all the changes and prepare the eARCs!

Aside from the corrections, my proofreader offered some thoughts I’d like to share.

On Nick, the main character:

…you made him believable…

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How Nick Hornby Influenced My Novel

How Nick Hornby Influenced My Novel

It goes without saying that if werent’ for Nick Hornby I wouldn’t have written my novel Not Famous. Nick Hornby is credited with starting the lad lit genre, and that’s the genre of my novel. Still, writing any sort of fiction, period, may not have been in the cards for me had it not been for his novel High Fidelity. Naturally, the main character of my book, Nick Forrester, is named after Hornby.