Why Self-Publishing by Tracy Reed
December 5, 2021 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as Agents, Authors, Edgy Christian Fiction, self-publishing
Tracy is busy today. While she’s away, she thought you might like to read a post from our archives. Why Self-Publishing was originally published on Jan 16, 2015.
Why Did You Chose To Self-Publish?
This is the first question most Self-Published Authors are asked. However, what’s really going through the mind of the person asking is, “So you couldn’t get an agent or your work wasn’t up to snuff.” That’s so not true.
I’ve learned a lot on the road to becoming a self-published writer. First, I had an agent. A well-respected agent in the world of Christian Fiction. Let me preface this by saying, she knew my writing style. She’d read the first five chapters of my book. Actually, it was a different book. [That’s a story for another time.] She got my book to ‘Board.’ Two years later and I’m still waiting to hear if that publisher wants to move forward with my book. I think it’s safe to say, they passed on it.
I need to back up. I write what is classed as Edgy Christian Fiction. What is that you ask? ECF [Edgy Christian Fiction], is fiction with Christian themes. What makes it ‘Edgy’ is that it includes elements not common in traditional Inspirational or Christian fiction. In my books, that means the kisses are a little more passionate, there’s sex between the married couples, language with a little bite, lots of physical descriptions voiced by the characters, wine, talk about abortion, divorce, fornication, lust, not liking your in-laws and anything else that goes on in everyday life. The men are hot, the women are loaded with curves and both are quick to render their appreciation of the opposite sex.
As a Christian, I wanted to read stories about women who weren’t ashamed or embarrassed to express their feelings, with strong personalities and business owners. Let’s be real, when you’re sitting down with your girlfriends talking, you’re not talking in prose. No, you’re very descriptive in your comments on how amazing Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Johnny Depp or Daniel Craig looked in their last movie. So why not write stories from that POV.
I feel it’s a little difficult to convey to the reader the heroine’s attraction is to the hero by not being descriptive in this manner. Traditional Inspiration Fiction, the heroine’s feelings might be described with something like, ‘His thick black hair was beautiful blowing in the wind, brought a smile to her face.’ That’s nice, but in my world, it would have a little more umph, like, ‘She wondered how his thick black hair would feel brushing against her chin as he placed hot kisses along her neck.’ Or maybe, ‘When he kissed the back of her neck, she lost the ability to stand.” Statements like this aren’t necessarily acceptable CBA approved.
In my GENERATIONAL CURSE, I wanted to tell a story about a man who never turned down a drink or a woman. But when he hit rock bottom, he went cold turkey and fell in love with God. His priorities changed and he refused to let anyone or anything destroy that relationship. The heroine, is the complete opposite. She hasn’t had a relationship with God since she was a child. And even then it was more forced. Now as an adult, the only part of marriage she wants, is a married lover. She has no desire to be with a single available man. In her mind, a married man is less complicated. But she is intrigued by the hero and he her.
In order to tell the story, I had to take the reader on a journey with the heroine. I had to show how complicated and empty her life was by detailing her relationship with her married lover. I’m sure the story could have been told without the sex, but I don’t think it would have had the same impact. I don’t want to give too much away, but in the end it all makes sense.
So Why Did I Choose To Self-Publish? I wanted to tell the stories I wanted to read. I met an agent at a conference and she gave me two options: tell the story with the sex and no God or tell the story with God and no sex.
I wrestled with that statement for quite a while. But, I felt God had given me a great platform and I refused to back down. Also, I wanted covers and titles that were a little racy, another thing not really permitted in Inspirational or Christian Fiction.
So here I am, a newbie writer taking a chance writing stories with a little heat and taboo subjects. I know my style of book isn’t for everyone and that’s fine. For those willing to read something a little different, I think they’ll enjoy it.
Funny thing, a few weeks after I published my book, I got a LinkedIn request from my former agent. I’m still deciding if I should accept it.
That’s why I chose to self-pub.
Books by Tracy Reed
History of Mail Order Christmas Catalogs by Will Zeilinger
December 3, 2021 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as Christmas Catalogs, Christmas History, mail order, The Wish Book
Montgomery Ward was the first department store in the United States to offer a mail-order catalog in 1872.
The Sears-Roebuck general catalog of 1896 included wax candles for Christmas trees. They added Christmas cards in 1898. The first Christmas tree ornaments appeared in the Sears catalog in 1900. They began offering Christmas stockings and artificial Christmas trees in 1910. Electric Christmas tree lights made their debut in the catalog in 1912.
As the Sears-Roebuck mail-order catalog was already a regular part of America’s Christmas tradition, their Christmas catalog of 1933 started a tradition that made the “Wish Book,” as many customers affectionately called it, an American icon, The Wish Book name became synonymous with the annual Christmas Book catalog.
The first Sears-Roebuck Christmas Book catalog cover illustrated some of the featured items in the catalog, including the “Miss Pigtails” doll, an electric (battery-powered) toy automobile, a Mickey Mouse watch, fruitcakes, Lionel electric trains, a five-pound box of chocolates, and live singing canaries.
Sears started a tradition of putting colorful, warm Christmas scenes on the cover of their Christmas catalog and regularly showed children, Santa Claus, and Christmas trees.
Many people nostalgically think of the Wish Book as filled with nothing but toys. But, over the years, more pages were devoted to gifts for adults than toys for children.
Finally, in 1968, Sears made it official by renaming the Christmas Book catalog “The Wish Book.”
Over the years, many other stores followed suit with their own Christmas mail-order catalogs, including Montgomery Ward, Spiegel, Gimbels, J.C.Penney, W.T.Grant, Bon Marche, White’s, Western Auto, and of course, Neiman Marcus.
Neiman Marcus is famous now for high-end department stores and for publishing an annual catalog of the outrageous in Christmas gift-giving.
As far back as 1926, Neiman Marcus offered Holiday gift suggestions, but they were in the form of postcards to get customers into their retail stores. They produced an actual Holiday catalog in the 1950s, and in 1959 Stanley Marcus invented the idea of including an outrageous holiday gift. The first took the form of a live Black Angus bull accompanied by a sterling silver barbecue cart. The standard catalog was changed to include the new, almost $2000 gift offering.
Neiman Marcus has since gained increased fame with some of its impossible and ostentatious gift products in the Christmas catalog. Although not specifically for children, maybe the children inside us, Neiman Marcus began offering “his and hers” gifts, like expensive cars, airplanes, and even vacations and yachts. In 1964, there were his and her hot air balloons, priced just under $7000 for both. The 1970 catalog featured reasonably a priced and readily available $10 oak tree. At the other end of the scale (at almost $600,000), there was a one-of-a-kind Noah’s ark, complete with matched pairs of animals. In 1975, one could get letters autographed by George and Martha Washington for around $8500. More recently (2005), they offered a private concert with Elton John for $1.5 million.
Under a Dark Moon Book Tour and Excerpt
November 27, 2021 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours tagged as #RABTBookTours, Georgian, historical romance, intrigue, mystery, Stella Riley
Brandon Brothers, Book 1
Historical Romance, Historical Fiction
Date Published: April 2021
Meet Adam Brandon … acutely intelligent and master-swordsman but gradually realising that he isn’t yet ready for the future he had previously planned.
Victim of a cruel deception, Camilla Edgerton-Foxe has a jaundiced view of the male sex and a tongue as sharp as her wits … but she also possesses an extraordinary talent.
A peculiar encounter offers Adam the kind of employment for which he is uniquely suited and which will exercise his mind as well as his muscles. The fly in the ointment is that Miss Edgerton-Foxe comes with it … as does
Rainham, viscount and master of disguise, with a frequently misplaced sense of humour.
From Paris, via London, to the mists and mysteries of Romney Marsh, these three are sent on the trail of something darker and infinitely more dangerous than the kegs of brandy that come ashore at the dark of the moon.
Other books in the Brandon Brothers Series
A Trick of Fate
Brandon Brothers Book 1
B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree.
Max Brandon is receiving bills for services he never ordered and goods he did not buy. For reasons he can’t begin to guess, someone is ‘borrowing’ his identity to cause him maximum annoyance.
When the games move closer to home, almost forcing him to fight a duel … more particularly, when they draw in Frances Pendleton, a lady he never expected to see again … Max vows to catch the man behind them, no matter
what the cost.
The result is a haphazard chase involving ruined abbeys, a hunt for hermits, a grotesque portrait … and a love story which, but for this odd trick of fate, might never have been given a second chance.
About the Author
Stella Riley is a British writer, living in Kent. She is the author of six
novels set in and around the English Civil Wars and the award-winning seven book Rockliffe Series – of which, Book Six, Cadenza, was the 2019 Readers’ Favourite for Romance and a 2021 Book Excellence award winner.
Under A Dark Moon is the second book in her Brandon Brothers Trilogy,
sequel to A Trick of Fate.
When not writing, she enjoys theatre, travel and playing the harpsichord.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Within twenty minutes of bidding his friends good night and leaving the tavern, Adam Brandon became aware that he was being followed. This was annoying on several counts. He had no idea who would go to the trouble of setting a tail on him or why they would since, just at the moment, he didn’t imagine he could be of any particular interest to anyone. Admittedly, that wasn’t always true … but right now it was. Then there was the possibility that this wasn’t the first time someone had dogged his steps; that it had happened before and he hadn’t no noticed. That pricked his pride. He’d thought himself better than that.
He continued on his way without altering his pace. He considered luring the tail into a dark alley where he could be grabbed, pinned to a wall and questioned. It wouldn’t be very difficult. On the other hand, it might be premature. There was a chance, however small, that he was merely being followed by the only footpad in Paris stupid enough to tackle an armed man for the sake of a few coins. And that being so, the sensible course was to simply stroll onwards, taking a few sudden detours, to see if the fellow stuck with him.
He did … and was still there when Adam reached his lodgings on the Rue des Minimes. With a brief nod for the concierge, he ran swiftly upstairs to the nearest window and was just in time to see his follower raise a hand as if signalling to someone before melting into the shadows on the far side of the street.
Not a footpad, thought Adam with a sort of amused grimness. And not alone. What, then? And why? What possible reason could anyone have for wanting to know my every move? But whoever it is, they’re making a mistake because now I’ll have to do something about it. And that’s just tiresome.
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Aliens by Neetu
November 26, 2021 by Neetu Malik in category Poet's Day by Neetu Malik tagged as frosts, Neetu, seasons, tender sprouts, wind-blown
Aliens
Wind-blown seeds
land in unknown soil
in hopes that they will grow
into trees
strong and dense with leaves
heavy with fruit
in fertile ground
where rivers do not
run dry
they do not yet know
what winds and snows
await them
in seasons to come
how frost might freeze
tender sprouts.
© Neetu Malik
Some of Neetu’s Books
To Tell the Truth by Veronica Jorge
November 22, 2021 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as Celebrations, feasts, game show, Happy Thanksgiving, to tell the truth
I often enjoyed watching the 1960s game show, To Tell the Truth. It still airs today with the current host Anthony Anderson. The premise of the show consisted of the following. The host read a description of an individual’s particular accomplishment, experience, or unusual occupation. Three contestants claimed to be the person described. Panelists posed a series of questions in order to discover which of the three was the true individual introduced by the host. The show ended with the line, ‘Will the real___please stand up,’ to the surprise, applause and/or dismay of the panelists and audience.
Which brings me to the Thanksgiving Holiday and the various controversies and disputes about who started the first Thanksgiving. So, I engaged in my own version of To Tell the Truth to discover the real inventor of Thanksgiving.
1565 The Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles celebrated a thanksgiving dinner in St. Augustine Florida with the local Timucua tribe to thank God for his crew’s safe arrival.
1619 Thirty-eight British settlers who arrived on the banks of the Virginia and James River designated December 4th as “a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”
1789 George Washington proclaimed a day of thanksgiving at the conclusion of the War for Independence.
1863 Abe Lincoln officially set the last Thursday of November to mark the day for “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
So, who is the real inventor?
The truth is that the concept of giving thanks and celebrating harvests is an ancient and global tradition.
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Native Americans feasted and paid tribute to their gods after the harvest. Jews celebrate the harvest festival of Sukkot, Ghana and Nigeria the Yam Festival, Erntedankkfest in Germany, and the Moon Festival in China, to name a few.
Thanksgiving feasts are celebrated worldwide to commemorate a safe journey, welcome a newborn, move into a new home, land a lob, overcome an illness, and maybe even after writing and selling your first book.
I am persuaded that thanksgiving is ingrained within each of us and spontaneously emanates from our hearts in response to circumstances, people, and events. Regardless of our culture or nationality, we inherently give thanks and rejoice with one another.
When I gather with my loved ones this Thanksgiving, I will be grateful for those who are still here, and for those who have passed on but still live in our hearts. I will give thanks for this country that has made life possible for us, and pray that others may find help and safety here too.
So, who then is the real first inventor of thanksgiving? The one who instilled it in our hearts.
Or as Lincoln said, “the beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”
Wishing you all much joy and many reasons for a Happy Thanksgiving.
See you next time on December 22nd.
Veronica Jorge
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