Fans of Roxy Parker and my Ghostwriter Mystery series will be happy to hear I have now completed the fourth book in the series and it is with my US editor as we speak. I've had many wonderful emails from fans begging for another Roxy Parker adventure, so I hope this one delivers on every scale. It's now called Dying Words and actually derives from a real-life incident that happened to me about two years ago.
A man I had met and interviewed once very briefly called out my name on his death bed. He was begging for a photo to be returned. It was a photo he had given me for a relatively dull book on Surveying that I had just completed. I had to Express Post the photo back to him before he died and it got me wondering: why did he NEED that picture back, so desperately? Was there something hidden in the picture? Some clue to a secret treasure or a cause for his death?
And so Roxy Parker gets the same desperate plea in my next book, Dying Words. In her case the man was definitely murdered and she must try to work out why he called out her name before he slipped off this mortal coil. Thus begins a very baffling adventure for the adventure-prone ghostwriter who goes on a frantic chase to locate an old missing photograph before a mysterious burglar beats her to it. This seemingly benign, black and white portrait of six people in 1975 holds the key, not only to the man's senseless murder, but to another very brutal crime that happened 37 years ago.
Along the way, we also reunite with Roxy's motley collection of mates including gutsy copper Gilda and Roxy's now-boyfriend Max (who has a secret bombshell he's about to drop!)
It's an intriguing tale and I hope you enjoy it. I certainly enjoyed writing it and it's also been great fun creating the cover with my talented Aussie designer Stu Eadie. This cover will be a little different to the last three and I'll give you all a sneak peek once I have it in my hot little hands (or should that be hot little hardrive?).
Once again, thanks to everyone for your patience and support, and I'll let you know once it's available online. In the meantime, you can catch Roxy's other adventures (or try one of my other books, The Agatha Christie Book Club or An Island Lost) at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=C.A.+Larmer
All feedback most welcome.
Happy reading,
Christina
Showing posts with label Stuart Eadie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stuart Eadie. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Monday, September 5, 2011
Smashed at last
Almost exactly a month after my first attempt to upload my first ebook, Killer Twist (A Ghostwriter Mystery), to Smashwords (SW), I have finally succeeded, and not because I'm technologically savvy, I hasten to add. After formatting it in accordance with SW's Style Guide (three hours and a lot of sweat later), and adding a slick cover courtesy of designer Stuart Eadie, I pressed the publish button and expected instant success. My how delusional I was!
It didn't convert. Hmmm.
I tried a million different methods, I took out bolds and italics, I reformatted — no mean feat I can tell you— and tried again. Still no luck. And the stream of cries for help that I sent SW largely went unanswered (when they did bother to get back to me, they contained no useful tips at all. Just told me to try again. Duh!).
The problem with SW, as far as I can tell, is that if you have so much as a tab out of place the whole file does not convert. You have to get the formatting exact. Whatever I had done, it was clearly NOT exact. (Another problem with SW is the fact that it's free. I don't want to pay for it, don't get me wrong, but perhaps if I had, they may have responded to me faster and more effectively?)
I was left feeling frustrated, demoralised and pitifully low—it takes so long to write a book, edit it, get a cover designed, and let go of the whole, dreamy idea of ever finding a 'real' publisher, that when you finally decide to self-publish an ebook you just want the friggin thing to work! For a whole month it just wouldn't. My cover uploaded, it looked fabulous. But they kept rejecting my book.
Was this an omen?
Eventually I realised that I needed to bring in the Big Guns, or at least accept that I'm a Luddite and hire someone who isn't. Enter Amy Siders from US-based formatting business 52 Novels. We love her now! For a mere $45 (AUS$43), she formatted it in less than 10 days and got it back to me. At first, it still didn't work and I was beyond tearful. DAMN IT! Then I realised it had page breaks—a SW no-no—so she redid it immediately and PRESTO!
It's up. It's on the SW website.
Or, at least, it will be when they read through and approve. Right now you can search for it and find it, download it and buy it. But I guess it won't come up on the main menu for a few days. Fair enough. Someone has to manually check for errors, inappropriate language etc etc.
But the process has finally begun. Oh hail the ebook, and may I sell at least one!
xo Christina
It didn't convert. Hmmm.
I tried a million different methods, I took out bolds and italics, I reformatted — no mean feat I can tell you— and tried again. Still no luck. And the stream of cries for help that I sent SW largely went unanswered (when they did bother to get back to me, they contained no useful tips at all. Just told me to try again. Duh!).
The problem with SW, as far as I can tell, is that if you have so much as a tab out of place the whole file does not convert. You have to get the formatting exact. Whatever I had done, it was clearly NOT exact. (Another problem with SW is the fact that it's free. I don't want to pay for it, don't get me wrong, but perhaps if I had, they may have responded to me faster and more effectively?)
I was left feeling frustrated, demoralised and pitifully low—it takes so long to write a book, edit it, get a cover designed, and let go of the whole, dreamy idea of ever finding a 'real' publisher, that when you finally decide to self-publish an ebook you just want the friggin thing to work! For a whole month it just wouldn't. My cover uploaded, it looked fabulous. But they kept rejecting my book.
Was this an omen?
Eventually I realised that I needed to bring in the Big Guns, or at least accept that I'm a Luddite and hire someone who isn't. Enter Amy Siders from US-based formatting business 52 Novels. We love her now! For a mere $45 (AUS$43), she formatted it in less than 10 days and got it back to me. At first, it still didn't work and I was beyond tearful. DAMN IT! Then I realised it had page breaks—a SW no-no—so she redid it immediately and PRESTO!
It's up. It's on the SW website.
Or, at least, it will be when they read through and approve. Right now you can search for it and find it, download it and buy it. But I guess it won't come up on the main menu for a few days. Fair enough. Someone has to manually check for errors, inappropriate language etc etc.
But the process has finally begun. Oh hail the ebook, and may I sell at least one!
xo Christina
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