Category: AUTHOR

Finding Titles for your Books

I have changed my mind on the title of the novel which is now almost ready for publication. I finally settled on:

Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate.

I really like this title – not too much like a Harry Potter title but still has that ring to it. I like the rhythm of it actually. Also like the fact that I managed to get two descriptive words – gate and temple in there. The temple bit will be fairly obvious to most readers but the gate bit is only alluded to in the text.

The manuscript is now uploaded to lulu.com.

I have started work on building the cover for the book. I am having some problems getting permission for some of the images. One of the owners of an image seems to be uncontactable.

As far as the new sci-fi story is going, I have been making good progress and the plot is developing. What is surprising though is that an element of plot has crept in which I never planned and I have no idea where it will go. Where do these things come from?

Reaching Your Target Audience

Well, I have decided to call the book ‘Ordo Lupus and The Winged Serpent’. It’s not a name I thought up (thanks – you know who you are and there will definitely be acknowledgement), but it’s better than the titles I thought up and others like it.

Target Audience
I initially aimed this book at Baby Boomers – well actually I basically aimed it at fantasy/suspense thrillers and then pleased myself, but it has ended up more pure fantasy than I intended. I don’t really mind that. It’s often been said that there is an element of sci-fi in all my stories and I suppose fantasy is pretty close to that, so maybe I am homing in on what I really like writing (and perhaps I am getting better at it). I now just need to actually make contact with my audience! I had a lot of friends into this kind of writing many years ago at college, but I seem to have lost contact with them. I do not have a single close friend who is into the genre now, so I am contacting interest groups on lulu.com (where my work is published). I will see if they are interested in reviewing my work, and I will review some of theirs in return. Continue reading “Reaching Your Target Audience” →

I Have Received useful Feedback

OK all the readers who are going to complete my draft (of the werewolf story) have completed it and I have all the feedback. It makes for very interesting reading. The curious thing – which I didn’t expect but probably should have, is that they all completely disagree.

While one person thinks that one chapter or section is boring, for another it is their favourite part. This makes it quite difficult to do any editing at all although there were some areas that all felt could be improved. A secondary problem arose from that though:

For instance one passage that several felt was really extraneous I deleted, and then did a kind of flash-back just for the vital details of that section – like a summary. But then people said it sounded like I was rushing on to the next bit. Even worse, one reader said that for the next section there then wasn’t enough background so that I even contemplated putting the original section back in. Continue reading “I Have Received useful Feedback” →