Author: Barbara Custer

Author of: Twilight Healer Steel Rose Life Raft: Earth City of Brotherly Death Close Liaisons Infinite Sight When Blood Reigns Infinite Sight Publisher / Editor of Night to Dawn Books & Magazine
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PWC 2019: Day One

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featuring zombies, vampires, demons, and human monsters

Day One of #PWC2019 was everything I thought it would be and much more. I took classes with Shirley Hailstock, Jonathan Maberry, and Brian McKinley. I’d like to share some highlights from the conference.

Shirley discusses the types of plots, protagonists, and villains and recommends avoiding superhuman qualities unless I’m prepared to put them in situations that challenge these qualities. She reminded that most villains should have at least one streak of kindness and a favorite pet. In my current WIP, I have my protagonist being rescued. In the rewrite, my protagonist will still be rescued, but she will have almost finished her escape before the cavalry arrives. I’m thinking now that villain should love birds the way I do balloons. 🎈🎈

Brian discussed trends and advises that zombies have gotten old and recommended biological means as a way to craft good horror fiction. Thankfully, my previous job as a respiratory therapist helps this cause. He also recommended Dean Koontz’s rules on good fiction. To summarize, Koontz suggests multi-dimensional characters, anticipation to create suspense, avoiding something other than their own survival.

Jonathan discussed the business end of writing, query letters, and the technique of pitching a book. If I query someone, I will skip the cuteness and be professional. Save the Mylar balloon stories for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, for balloons are my brand or uniform. Maybe allow a week to type that query letter because it needs to be strong. As for verbal pitching, I know now that I’ve been going about it wrong. Jonathan recommends noting five things that the book is about and five things that the book is not about. For example, Steel Rose has zombies, Mylar balloons, and fighting scenes between humans and hostile aliens, but that’s not really what the book is about, so I might not mention them. It’s about Alexis struggling with health problems and learning that she’s stronger than she thinks she is. She’s finding out that the world isn’t what it used to be. It’s about a Kryszka doctor trying to fit into a human environment. It’s about two people learning to love again.

For pitching, he recommends having feeling in your voice. That is something I struggle with. Perhaps I’d best practice with my Mylar balloons. In the meantime, I will prepare a follow-up blog with my thoughts on day two and three.

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The Website Changes Begin!

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Mylar balloons for Barbara Custer, horror author

“Oh, Barbara!” purred a voice coming from a Mylar balloon tree. “Barbara!”

I looked up from the submission I was reading. “Yes?”

“You’re contracting several books and making promotion plans,” my Mylar balloon said. “Isn’t it high time you cleaned up your website?”

Aw, geez, why did they have to bring that up? “I will, eventually.”

“How about now?” the balloons asked. “How are you going to sell new books with the same, tired images?” Then they smiled as if offering a reprieve. “You don’t need a new theme. The one you’ve got gives you plenty of options to make your website look spiffy.”

I started with the header. I like to use rotating headers, and coming up with three headers I could live with took two afternoons. I thought I might need to redo them after I decided on a background, but this hasn’t been the case. Thankfully.

I started looking at backgrounds when my balloons piped up with. “How about getting rid of those advertisements? They’re an eyesore.”

These were WordPress ads – I agreed to run the ads with the understanding that if anything sold, I’d get a percentage. Trouble was, most of the items had nothing to do with my business. The folks at WordPress (I have a self-hosted site, but it works in tandem with my WordPress account) were glad to help, and the ads are gone.

I started looking over new themes again, and was about to download when the balloons got my attention. “Don’t you dare monkey with your theme,” they warned me. “If you do, you’ll make a lot more work and spend money that you don’t have. You’ve got a perfectly good theme that will enable you to change the font and the background. While you’re at it, look at your menus, too.”

My first attempt at changing the font didn’t go, so I installed a Google font plugin. For the menu, I merely had Night to Dawn Magazine & Books, LLC. If people clicked on it, they would get a dropdown menu of all the authors and their books. I rearranged the menus so that the authors have their own link in plan view and a dropdown for their books. One author had no link, but it’s fixed now. I got to wonder how people managed to find stuff on my website. What’s more, it would be helpful for each author and book to have a description to tempt viewers. So … I have more work to do in this area. Not sure if I like the white letters in gray … I’m saving that one for after I see how the new background works.

My takeaways? It pays to review your website every so often to make sure the links, images, and other items work. The balloons had it right about not changing themes. Each new theme presents a learning curve, along with all the work I needed to do on the menu. Later on, when certain issues have settled, I can look at getting a premium theme. Before changing themes, I would ask, what will the new theme give that you don’t have now? And I would back up the website before making the changeover, and consider putting into maintenance mode. And if you don’t know CSS skills, thankfully, WordPress has plugins that can help; but before using them, make sure they’re compatible with your version of WordPress. Do you use WordPress software? How do you approach website management? I’d love to hear about your experiences. 😊

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Learning Curve Conclusion

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Last time I posted, I was struggling with KDP paperback publishing. Three Mylar balloons and two of my best curse words later, I hired Judi Fennell of Formatting4u.com to help Night to Dawn 35 to meet KDP specs. The process started out messy, but thankfully Judi had a lot of patience. The upshot was, Night to Dawn 35 is now available on Amazon. I’ve started mailing copies of Night to Dawn 35 to the respective contributors, not from KDP, but from Lulu Press.

Night to Dawn 35 of Amazon won’t look like Lulu’s or Barnes & Noble’s version because of these specs. For one thing, you can’t have a title on the cover and list of contributors. You need an author name, or in Night to Dawn’s case, “Edited by” name. So the cover page will read “Presented by Barbara Custer.” For the folks who haven’t read the book, I like to use two columns for many of the stories. That didn’t work for the KDP files, so all the stories and poetry in the Amazon version have one column. The illustrations, poetry, and tales are the same in both versions. 

Amazon had a great thing going with CreateSpace and moved too fast by switching over to KDP. CreateSpace used to supply their own manuscript and cover templates for people that needed them. KDP has interior and cover templates, too. Trouble was, I downloaded an interior template and received the Idle Buddy Trojan virus into my computer, necessitating a trip to the computer repair shop. Esther Mitchell, a good writing buddy, sent me templates I can use for the trade paperback and Night to Dawn magazine. These templates have worked on KDP and are safe to use. The 6×9 template was made by Publisher Gail Delaney.

My takeaways? I learned I wasn’t the only author having problems uploading. Formatting4U has been getting a lot of business thanks to KDP managing paperbacks. I also found out I may need to look at photo editing software so I can resize images without messing up the DPI.

Also, KDP does provide you with specs on margins and page layout, and I recommend that you use that instead of their templates. You don’t want a computer virus. If you wish, contact me at barbaracuster@hotmail.com, and I will be glad to mail you a blank template. I am using the template to format L. M. Labat’s The Sanguinarian Schwartzwald, but referring to KDP’s page for margins and adjusting as needed. Before I work with KDP again, I may want to fortify myself with another Mylar balloon. Your thoughts? 

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Learning Curve

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I need a balloon. Mylar balloons have a way of easing stress for me the way chocolate or beer might for other folks.

Night to Dawn 35 is ready for publishing, and I’ve started processing orders for contributors to get copies. Things worked out well with Lulu. They do an excellent job on the cover, as I can promise by the looks of the proof. CreateSpace no longer exists, and all of its books transferred seamlessly over to KDP. So why do I want a balloon? KDP paperback printing is not as user-friendly as CreateSpace was.

For starters, none of the templates Lulu and CreateSpace used are compatible with KDP. CreateSpace and KDP (both working under Amazon) had an arrangement which facilitated the transition of the paperbacks. That arrangement went bye-bye, and KDP has its own templates.

That means I’m on my own, and I have to reformat NTD 35 on a KDP template. KDP reports “problems with uploading your file—please send another,” but don’t tell you what the problem is. They don’t accept my PDF files at all and manage to butcher the Word files, and the proof will have skipped pages. It could be that the problem lies with KDP. ” /><

A writer buddy suggested distributing through Barnes & Noble. You can publish your print books directly through Barnes & Noble if you use a separate ISBN number. What’s more, the CreateSpace/Lulu templates are compatible with Barnes & Noble. The cover takes some work, but for the magazine, I can upload the front and back cover, and do the spine online. font:m

There is still the issue with KDP. I’m glad NTD 35 will be available through Lulu Book and Barnes & Noble. However, people like to order from Amazon, especially if they have prime memberships. So I finally bit the bullet and contacted someone who does formatting. Maybe I can learn a way to make a file KDP ready. I still want a balloon.

In the meantime, I’d like to know if any of y’all used Amazon KDP for publishing your paperbacks. How was the process for you? What problems did you run into, and how did you fix them?

Barbara Custer loves Mylar balloonsand horror fiction.
Quest for a friendly KDP template
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Neil Benson’s Unholy Embrace

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Years ago, Night to Dawn published Neil Benson’s Unholy Embrace, a vampire romance which garnered many 5-star reviews. A different company has given new life to Unholy Embrace, and the second edition is now available.

Vampire romance tale by Neil Benson

Blurb:

Frank Thornton’s night of passion with the vampire Nessa Harcanu ignites the love that binds them to each other. He learns of the great power she gained from her 500-year fight for survival. Their commitment to each other forces Frank to enter a dark world he never imagined. Together, they battle werewolves, vampires, and other creatures of the night, leading to a confrontation with an immortal, seemingly invincible demon. They must use all their strength and wit to survive the greatest battle of their lives.

Excerpt:

On a crisp April night, Nessa and I held hands as we walked to Broadway on a narrow side street from a theater on the Upper West Side. Without warning, she pushed me aside and turned toward the alleyway on our left. A dark, hairy form raced at her, emitting a growl that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Nessa ducked, put her hands under its body, and flipped her attacker through the air into a light blue delivery truck. A second dark-haired creature emerged from the same alley, snarling and displaying three-inch-long incisors glistening with saliva. When the second beast tried to bite Nessa, she grabbed the creature’s throat and snapped its head backward. She sank her fangs into its neck and ripped the carotid artery. I gagged at the sight of the blood spurting from the gaping wound.

The first beast rose and was about to charge Nessa when I raced forward to tackle it.

“No!” Nessa yelled, and she put herself between the beast and me. The creature swiped a hairy paw at her head, but she ducked and stepped behind her lethal adversary. The creature tried to turn, but she grabbed its throat and raised the beast two feet into the air. She squeezed its neck until the sounds of bones cracking made me cringe. She let go, and the creature fell to the ground. Nessa closed her eyes and sniffed the air.

“Any more of them?” My thumping heart banged against my ribcage, and perspiration ran down my forehead.

“I don’t smell or hear anything for a quarter of a mile,” she replied. “How do you feel after surviving your first attack by werewolves?”

Nessa inspected the creatures she had killed with such little effort.

“Terrified but happy to be alive.” I stood by her side at the nearest werewolf and examined its paws. Three-inch claws tapering from one inch around at the base to razor-sharp tips made lethal weapons.

“That’s why I screamed at you. I admire your courage, but the creature would have eviscerated you in one swift stroke.”

“I know you’ve told me about the damage werewolves can inflict, but hearing about them isn’t the same as watching them in action.” I shivered at the thought of how easily either of them could have killed me.

She stared at me. “Frank, are you OK?”

“I think so.” My pulse had slowed down, and my lungs no longer screamed for air. I glanced upward at the night sky. “No full moon?”

“They can inject themselves with a serum that enables them to become a werewolf whenever they choose.” The werewolves terrified me, but the creature Nessa became frightened me almost as much. I stepped back and watched her fangs disappear, and her eyes return to normal.

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A Mylar Balloon in your Home …

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Barbara Custer loves Mylar balloonsand horror fiction.

A Mylar balloon in your home is worth two at the store. Why moon over the balloons on display if you’ve already got a thriving one in the house? Sometimes, the store balloons are either too pricey or not for sale at all. Better to go with the sure thing.

That was my conclusion when I contemplated applying for freelance assignments from Upwork.com. You see, several weeks ago, I contracted with L. M. Labat to publish her second book, The Sanguinarian Schwartzwald, a sequel to The Sanguinarian Id. The Sanguinarian Id was well received by reviewers, and its excellent cover had drawn quite a few readers. I’m editing the book now and loving every moment of it. The Sanguinarian Id was a haunting tale of a woman who battled hordes of Nazi soldiers in her quest to hunt down a dangerous madman. The Sanguinarian Schwartzwald promises all that and much more. Methinks 2019 looks promising.

I’m still mindful of my work on the website. That means redoing a few pages and getting a new theme. Recent unexpected expenses made me hesitate to get a premium theme. That and the need to find a theme I like. A WordPress theme has to talk to me the same way a Mylar balloon does at the store before I’ll consider using, let alone buying. So now, I’ve put upwork.com on the shelf until a later date.

My Mike once said, “Stick with the one who brought you to the dance.” I think he had it right. That saying can be applied to publishers, projects, day jobs, and anything that has worked for you. With that in mind, I’ll stick with the Mylar balloons at home. However, I won’t complain if another materializes in my cart during my next visit to the supermarket. 🙂

L. M. Labat penned science fiction / vampire romance tale of medical malpractice.

 

 

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