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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Guest Blog & Contest with Author Terry Spear

Just to keep you all on your toes, I have a second guest this week! Author Terry Spear is doing a bit of a blog tour to promote her new release 'Legend of the White Wolf'. Her newest book is the fourth part in her Werewolf Series and books 5 & 6 are also due to be released this year.

I hope you all enjoy Terry's guest blog and that it gives you a little idea of how book publishing works. Don't forget to enter the great contest she is running! You can find the details on how to enter at the bottom of the guest blog.

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The Good and the Bad of Publishing

Thanks so much to Amberkatze for having me here today! She asked me to speak on the good and bad of being published.

Well, I can tell you the bad part of being published is deadlines! :-) Once upon a time, long, long ago, I wrote at my own leisure. I wasn’t published, you see. And you thought there wasn’t anything good about not being published! But in those long years past, I could write, or not. I could start another story, if I got stumped on the other, and another, and another. I could have twenty unfinished manuscripts and it didn’t matter. That is the good thing about being unpublished. No deadlines.

Fast forward to today. The good thing about being published is deadlines. I know, I know, that’s also the bad thing about being published. But just think—with a deadline, it means you’ve sold. With a deadline, it means you’ll build up a fan base. With deadlines, it means you’ll quit procrastinating! And you’ll concentrate on writing that story that needs to be told.

Another bad thing about being published is that you can’t write exactly what you want to write. You brand yourself as you build up a fan base. At least until you’re really well established. Then some authors are able to leap into another genre and are able to pull it off. But in the beginning, you have to stick to something so that readers will begin to follow you, and expect that your writing will be funny, or romantic, or mysterious, or suspenseful, or out of this world. You can no longer just write anything for the fun of it. You have an obligation to your readers to write what they expect you to write.

The good thing about being published is that you can’t write exactly what you want to write. I know, I know, that’s also the bad thing about being published. But just think—by writing in a similar vein, you improve your story-telling because you’re no longer a jack-of-all writing ventures, but more of an expert. You develop a following, which means sales, which makes both your publisher happy and you happy, and your readers happy, and they all want more of the same.

Another bad thing about being published is that it is no longer possible to just write the book, sell it, and expect the publisher to sell it for you. Years ago, I remember an author saying how her children’s book was discontinued, and she tried everything to get the publisher to keep it in stock. But sales were just too poor and they wouldn’t do it. She didn’t realize she should have attempted to market it herself. She had the background, the ability, the contacts, but she just figured it was in the publisher’s court. She was done with it once she’d submitted it. She ended up begging another smaller company to reprint the book, and this time she made a monumental effort to market it herself, and it was quite successful. Authors complain that if they didn’t have to spend so much time marketing their books, they could write so much more. So yes, this can be a downside to being published.

The good thing about being published is that you can market your own book! You knew I was going to say that, right? Yep, I love visiting with fans, sharing my secrets as to why I wrote the books I did, enjoying comments, answering questions, expanding my pack when it’s way too small as it is. I worked hard to write the book, edit it, and edit it some more. I want to see that it’s successful, so though I can’t afford to spend a lot of money on the venture, I’m more than happy to write guest blogs, do interviews, and anything else I can to help promote the books. I never want to be in a situation where I have to find another publisher for a book I lovingly wrote because I hadn’t bothered to help market it. And I love when fans want to see more of other characters in new books. To me, this is the ultimate benefit from author marketing!

So those are some of the pitfalls and the great things about being published. Deadlines, branding your writing style, and marketing. And with four books in the werewolf series already out, four more to come, and more after that, I’d say the benefits outweigh the pitfalls any day!

I hope you’ll read the wolf series if you haven’t already! And thanks again to AmberKatze for having me as her guest today!

LEGEND OF THE WHITE WOLF—IN STORES FEBRUARY 2010

Award-Winning Author introduces the next installment of her paranormal romance series
A 2008 Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year Award Winner!
Night Owl Romance Reader Choice Award for Best Paranormal 2008

In this fourth in Spear's series, Private Eye Cameron MacPherson and Faith O'Mallery are both on quests that lead them into the world of magical wolves...

Cameron arrives in the Canadian Arctic to search for his partners in his P.I. business who are late returning from a hunting trip. Faith is there to discover what her father had seen in the same area years earlier that had made him lose touch with reality—man-wolves, he called them.

The two tumble into an icy world of enemies bent on destroying the lupus garou kind. As they turn into lupus garou themselves, and bond with the pack that only they can rescue from destruction, Cameron and Faith find their soul mates in each other.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry Spear has an MBA from Monmouth University. As an eclectic writer, she dabbles in the paranormal, historical and true life stories for both teen and adult audiences. She is the author of Winning the Highlander’s Heart and The Vampire in My Dreams (young adult). Spear lives in Crawford, Texas.

You can find Terry at the following places:

www.terryspear.com
http://www.wickedlyromantic.blogspot.com/
http://casablancaauthors.blogspot.com
http://fierceromance.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/home.php?ref=home
http://shapeshifterromance.wordpress.com

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Contest Time!

Terry is going to send two lucky winners a copy of Legend of the White Wolf. The 2 winners must be in the US or Canada (sorry!) so please don't enter if you don't have a mailing address in either of these countries.

How to enter!

Terry's books are all about magical wolves. So my question is, if you could be any magical animal, what would you be?

No Magical Animal = No entry!

Earn entries for each place you link this contest on the net. You can post on Facebook, Twitter & MySpace but make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries!

You can also earn extra entries by emailing your friends about the contest. Just make sure you send a copy of your email or receipt to me at Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot net.

The contest will stay open until Sunday 21st of February 2010 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.

Good Luck!

32 comments:

Sarah said...

I'm not entering the contest (I'm in the UK) but I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading the guest post. I've seen so many great things about this book recently. I'm new to the series but planning on buying book 1 as soon as I can :o)

Becky said...

What a great post! I love Terry's Werewolf Series.
Deciding on what magical animal I would want to be is a hard decision. I wouldn't mind being a wolf. I like how they develop close relationships and have strong social bonds. I also like the ideal of freedom that a wolf presents. I think that a wolf teachs us to respect our urges and unconscious desires and helps us to accept our intuition and physic perceptions.

beckyqward(at)gmail(dot)com

Lori said...

My first choice would be wolf. They are beautiful creatures. I like their pact mentality and that they mate for life.

Its a simple answer but an honest one. :)

ladyrogue@ymail.com

LuAnn said...

Well, I would probably choose to be an ordinary house cat -- not very magical, I know, but I sure would love to laze around and be waited on hand and foot!

reading_frenzy at yahoo dot com

Andrea I said...

I'm looking forward to reading this book. I would want to be a werecat, house cat. I love my cats!

Twitter http://twitter.com/lillieblue613

Barbara E. said...

I think I'd like to be a black panther. They're just so sleek, powerful and sexy. I haven't read any of Terry's books yet, but the more I hear about them, the more I want to run out and pick them up. Definitely putting this series on my wish list.

SiNn said...

if i could be any magical animal id have to pick a wolf they r beatiful creatures and only have one life mate and r pack oriented

awesome post

mortalsinn@yahoo.com
i already subscribe awesome guest post

Terry Spear said...

Hi, Sarah! Thanks so much for dropping by and commenting! I really appreciate that you are interested in the series! Enjoy!!!

Becky, thanks! I'm thrilled you love the series! I loved your comments about being a wolf. I so agree!

Lori, yes, absolutely! Wolves rule!

LuAnn, okay, cat's are nice. I loved mine when I had them. And wolves and cats can get along. You'll see that in Wolf Fever. :) Well, werewolf type wolves and cats at least. :)

Andrea, another cat person. Cat and dog fights, oh my. But truly, my dogs and cats adored one another. :) They'd curl up and sleep together and it was so sweet. :)

Barbara E. I love black panthers also. Did you ever see that movie where some of the people turned into black panthers? It was an interesting film. I have a scifi romance I wrote, that still needs a lot of work, but the heroine is a black panther shifter and her brother is a dragon. Lots of fun to write. :)

SiNn, I agree. Back to wolves. :) LOL Thanks!

elaing8 said...

Great post.
A magical animal,maybe a unicorn or...oh a cougar ;),don't see any stories of werecougars :)

tweeted http://twitter.com/elaing8/status/9234187153

Terry Spear said...

Hmm, cougars, another cat...Elaing, and a unicorn. My co-worker would love that! :) I did love Legend, about the last unicorn! :)

Calliope said...

I would have to go with a black panther or a puma or some other large cat - I just love the way they prowl. Although, granted, I'd prolly be better off as a fox or hawk or some other native animal - would be easier to blend in.

tetewa said...

I would be a dolphin since they are my favorite animals. I also love to swim so this is another good reason why I picked a dolphin!

Llehn said...

I'd love to be a mermaid. Um, are they magical enough?

Beth Caudill said...

No need to enter me because I've already won (received my book and finished it)

If I could be any magical creature...I'd be a dragon or a wolf. Hey, there's a reason I read werewolves.

I used to be in love with Unicorns but I don't really want to be one.

Great post Terry.

Persephone said...

I would so want to be a unicorn~ It was the first thing that popped into my head. Not the coolest of choices, but I am a romantic nerd type...and I still think unicorns are cool, just not on my bedroom wall.

Tweeted (https://twitter.com/suan_tian/status/9247258957)

patronus89013 at yahoo dot com

Terry Spear said...

Calliope, I"m with you. I love the way the big cats move. :) But I'm also in agreement that trying to blend in would be lots more difficult in a lot of places!

Tetewa, I love dolphins. They make me think of mermen! :)

Llehn, yes, that's what I was thinking of! Mer...uhm, okay, mermen. But as a mermaid you'd have a better chance of attracting a merman, right? :)

Thanks, Beth! Yeah, werewolves are the best! :) I do love dragons too...as long as they're not the bad guys! :)

Marianna, unicorns are beautiful creatures! I wrote about them in a book that I haven't yet sold. LOL I think I've written about every mythological creature there is in one book or another. :)

booklover0226 said...

I would like to be a magical bird.

Thanks,
Tracey D
booklover0226 AT gmail DOT com

Terry Spear said...

A magical bird, how interesting, Booklover! :) That would be fun!

Sue Brandes said...

First off love your book covers. And your books sound wonderful. I would also pick a cat. I love them & I think they are mysterious, alof, lovely.

Sue B
stevebrandes(at)gmail(dot)com

Terry Spear said...

Omigosh, Sue B, the cats are overrunning the dogs! :)

Anonymous said...

I would want to be a wolf. They are loyal to their mates. They live in family groups(their packs). And they are so gorgeous.
mom1248atattdotnet

Benita said...

So many people believe in the powers of the wolf. I think cats are indeed regal and could possess magical powers: puma, cougar, tiger. These would be my choices.

bgcchs(at)yahoo(dot)com

Terry Spear said...

I agree with you, Patsy!

Even though I love cats, and the big ones are so elegant, what I love most is wolves and most canines, because they're pack-oriented. I love how in particular, a wolf takes a mate for life. We had a mated pair of road runners who lived on our land in Oklahoma, and I loved seeing them together, always. They also mate for life. And I was just reading about golden eagles that do the same. There's something about an animal that has stick-to-itness that is endearing and when that transfers to a man of the werewolf kind, it makes him the perfect catch.

We had an Afghan hound, beautiful and elegant, yet she had much more of a cat's disposition, wasn't loyal to the family in the least, was extremely independent minded. And yet I also had a cat that was so loyal to me, she was like my shadow. She refused to eat when I took her to the kennel when I traveled. :) And I ended up having to leave her at home where she was so much happier. So I guess there's a feline personality in some canines, and a canine mentality in some cats! :)

mrsshukra said...

I always enjoy reading Terry's interviews!

delilah0180(at)yahoo(dot)com

Terry Spear said...

Thanks, Delilah!

justpeachy36 said...

justpeachy36@yahoo.com

Please enter me in the giveaway.

If I were going to be a magical animal, a wolf would definitely be high on my list. But, I am really very fond of my service dog, Sundae, so in honor of her, I would choose to be a magical dog! Just think of the possibilities! LOL...

Diana Dang said...

A dragon!

faked_sugartone at hotmail

Terry Spear said...

Hi Justpeachy! What does your service dog do? I think they are wonderful!

All This Silence... said...

I think I would definitely have to be a dragon. I would be the bomb!

Terry Spear said...

LOL, All this Silence.

Unknown said...

wolf. and not just cause of u write abou wolves. i love wolves, i got rugs hung n my wll with rugs with wolves to decorate

Terry Spear said...

Sounds terrific, Blackroze! Wolves are great!