Piratessa makes Quarterfinalist

I entered the highly competitive screenplay contest put on by TSL. Part of the reason for its popularity is that it's free. I enter contests all the time for both my screenplays. I do it for two reasons; First is it's a means of getting a producer or agent for a nobody like me. Secondly is the feedback, which I usually pay for. Especially in the beginning, this was critical to determine if I had what it takes as a writer to venture into this field. Just because about half the people who read my novels think they should be made into movies, doesn't mean I'm good at writing a screenplay.

So, you can imagine my excitement to have advanced to the quarterfinalist! Here's my email from them:

Good news: your script, Piratessa, is advancing to the Quarterfinalist round of the TSL Free Screenplay Contest. Out of over 13,000 submissions, your script was among the top 1,000! Congratulations!

EBook, Paperback, Book Cover Questions

How do you publish to so many eBook sites? How did you make your book into a paperback? How do you design a book cover? (I've answered the book cover question in more detail on a previous blog post) I've been asked this by so many people, I don't know who to attribute the question to :)

There’s basically two ways to get your book fully distributed. You can either go to each and every eBook website and download your document file to their library, or just download the document to Smashwords.com. I’m not getting paid by them to write this, but seriously Smashwords is by far the most comprehensive approach. That’s not to say it’s easy. The document must be prepared per their standards… stripped completely clean of any possible corruption. Fortunately, a step-by-step book is free at their website to ensure you can do it properly. Smashwords then takes your perfectly formatted Microsoft Word 97-2003 ‘doc’ (not docx) and formats it for all e-reader devices (each device is different). Believe it or not this is a free service up front. As the sales come in, then they get a portion of the profit. I tried a Fiverr formatter but the guy couldn’t do it right and I ended up doing it myself. Don’t be suckered into their re-assurances that they can do it. Make sure they can, and tell them you won’t pay them if Smashwords doesn’t place you in the premium catalogue.

I’m going to say it again because it’s that important. Follow the Smashwords guidelines exactly. It will probably take you a couple of days. BUT, if you do it right, you will be in their premium catalogue with maximum distribution.

There is only one place who doesn’t accept Smashwords. Can you guess who? Yep, Amazon! When you complete your work at Smashwords, you have to go over to Amazon and follow their instructions. Another couple of days to figure it out. But while you are at Amazon, check out the paperback option at KDP. You have to go to “Author Central” to publish paperback. The great news is they also don’t charge you for the process (which is good because you’re the one doing all the work). They will pay you a percentage. You can choose your price and it calculates your royalty. In the old days, when you had a book made into paperback, you had to purchase cases of books and pile them up in the spare room. Now it’s print on demand. When someone buys your book on Amazon, KDP prints it and then ships it directly to the reader.

Now let’s back up to the question of how to make a book cover. This actually needs to be done before you publish on any site. The easiest way is to go to Fiverr and choose from the hundreds of designers. It’s super cheap (less than $50 usually). At that point bundle your needs for eBook cover, paperback cover, and audio book cover. When you get your cover back you can then publish at Smashwords, Amazon eBook and Amazon paperback.

In my next post I’ll discuss how I got an audio book made…

How Do You Design a Book Cover?

My friend, John, asked me, “How do you design a book cover?”

Finally a technical question! There’s several different ways to go about it. I designed my first book on the Windows Art program. Honestly, it’s my favorite cover. Unfortunately I had to cave into business pressure and go with a photograph based cover… mainly because my second book had a photo cover.

Speaking of that, my publisher of El Tiburon was amazingly cool to have given me a great book cover. I’ll admit I asked them to stay with my design style, but no. So I had to approve their design, which meant saying no to several models because they didn’t look right.

Eventually I asked them to remove the models from the cover because it looked like a steamy romance (after about two years and multiple complaints from readers that the cover was misleading). Don’t get me wrong… El Tiburon has its romance, but steamy doesn’t quite fit the bill.

My first experience with making a professional quality cover was through a friend who used a Fiverr tech. We made Counterpart’s new cover. Again, I only had yay or nay power. I wanted to have control from the beginning.

For my recently published book, In the Crossfire of Revenge, I contracted with Fiverr all by myself. I felt so grown-up! :) I chose from their long list of book cover specialists based on reviews. I wanted one who allowed for multiple revisions. My lady was in Germany. We dialogued back and forth about how I wanted the cover to look. I was directed to an enormous photo bank to choose the photo I wanted (it took me about a week to decide). Then I sent it to her and she went to work. It took about six revisions until I was satisfied. I love the results… and it only cost me about $45 bucks! She gave me a cover in 3D, a thumbnail for eBook sites, and a square one for the audiobook, and the cover for the paperback.

Then I learned how to make it animated with glittering light using Glitterboo. I think it looks pretty cool on the cover I made for the McGee Series. That one I did using the phone app called Canva. My nephew took an artistic photo of his police gear for me to use. Canva is a great app.

Did you write stories or books when you were a child as well?

Megan Pagan asked, “Did you write stories or books when you were a child as well?"

“I know you ask because you have little ones at home,” I commented.

“That’s what made me think of it. It’s so interesting to hear how some things stick with people since childhood or how people stumble into something they’re passionate about later in life. Also, Levi writes books all the time. It’s so cute.”

I’m going to answer this from two angles: Firstly, did I write as a child and secondly, how to be an encouragement to the little writers in your charge.

My beginnings as a story teller started with just that… story telling (some call this fibs). Plus, I was an avid reader from childhood and was encouraged to relate what I’d read to my family. We all loved ghost stories and would sit around the campfire (we camped a lot) telling goose bumpy tales. Even when I was little I was expected to tell a ghost story. My dad was a bit of a prankster, and loved to tell us tall tales just to see how much we’d believe. We would sit around for hours and tell jokes. To add to that environment, my mom had the nickname, “Little Miss Adjective.” She could describe things to death! It was never a simple cloud in the sky… it was a puff of dragon’s breath chasing a dream! Or some other equally extravagant description. A favorite game on road trips was Mad Lib. Have you ever played that? It’s a fun way to engage the whole family in silly creativity.

English classes were always my easy classes. I started a couple of really, really cheesy romance novels in high school. I’ve kept them for a good laugh. My college coursework required an English class so I took creative writing. My professor challenged me to clean up the cute little stories I wrote, and to get serious. He felt I had the potential to be a writer. I was going to college to become a physical therapist, not a writer. It turns out there’s a lot of writing going on in that career. I found I had a skill for documentation and Medicare rebuttals.

In the meantime I had an intense dream bordering on nightmare that woke me up from a dead sleep. I wrote down the dream and that was the first chapter of my first serious work of literature—Counterpart. It took a decade to write while going to college and then working, but I finally did it.

My recommendation to parents of any child who writes is to let them write. Don’t correct anything they write. Even if you’re an English teacher. Writing can be taught, but creatively expressing yourself cannot. It’s a natural instinct (I think in everyone) that should be allowed to develop young. If a child thinks their ideas are stupid, they will usually stop. Let their teachers teach them the rules later in life. If a child shows you something they wrote, my recommendation is to make a private moment and have them read it to you.

Listen with sincerity. Question things that don’t make sense graciously. They can become good when they’re twenty. I also think this teaches them to start writing projects without getting too hung up on how it should turn out. That’s paralyzing. There’s nothing wrong with being overly confident when they’re ten! Trust me when they go to publish their first book they will become humble.

Okay, I’m stepping down off my soapbox now :)

Where do you write?

Debbie Bailey asked; Where is your favorite place to sit back and write?

The short answer; wherever I can find the right ergonomics. I usually like to sit bolt upright with my laptop on the surface in front of me. Sometimes I slouch way back in a lawn chair and prop my laptop on my... lap. Another option for me is to stand at a counter, or I place my laptop on an up-ended box on the table.

Most of my effective writing is done at a local Marriott Hotel Starbucks. I can sit for hours and be stimulated by the constant parade of people but never get interrupted by a friend. It’s just noisy enough to be white noise. If it’s absolutely quiet, I can be productive. The only time I cannot write is if there’s someone near me and I can hear everything they’re saying… I’m a compulsive eavesdropper! Trust me, if I can hear you, I’m listening to your conversation.

However, I’m not always home. I write a travel blog (Dashing Bold Adventure), so I write all over the world. Wherever I am, I make it work. In the old days I would find an internet cafe and pay for 30 minutes on their computer. That's when I developed speed! It would always take a few minutes to figure out the keyboard. Not every keyboard is a QWERTY. 

The Spanish speaking countries have the ñ on their board. Then to add to the fun the keys are often so worn out, you can’t read them :)

When we're abroad for months at a time, I find some spot that works for me... The terrace on the hotel roof in Puerto Escondido, the open bar at Columbus Isle/Club Med, an adorable cafe in Florence, the covered porch of our bungalow overlooking Lake Atitlan, a coffee shop in Guanajauto MX, etc… What I write varies depending on the amount of time I’m going to be in one place. I don’t do well with my novels if we’re on the move a lot.

A Little Background on El Tiburon

Guatemala

El Tiburon (The Shark) was the second of the McGee spy series. The main characters, Sean and Sport, have a knack for getting in trouble. Quite honestly, they are fun to write about… Especially Sport. She is a feisty, athletic, physician, and she can usually take care of herself. She’s extremely independent, but when she is kidnapped by a drug boss and dragged south to Guatemala she must depend on others to survive.

She escapes the drug lord’s compound and hides in a garbage can. On garbage collection day. The garbage collectors toss her into the dump truck and haul her off to the Guatemala City Garbage Dump. She’s rescued by a group of Guajeros.

This is where the research became intense.

Let me give some background. My husband and I have been to Guatemala several times. In fact we’ve had a seven-month long exchange pastor. What’s that? Periodically churches will send a junior pastor to the states to make connections and to learn new things (and teach us new things). We are known for our spare room. I’ve lost count of how many people have lived at our home in the last thirty years. So Marvin came for seven months followed by his sister Karina for four months. We flew to Guatemala for Marvin’s wedding, in which we were the God-parents (a big deal in Guate). Each time we’ve gone we’ve stayed for a month to go to language school, and to loaf around as only Americans can do. As I write this, Karina—my Guatemalan ‘daughter’, is sitting across from me at my kitchen table. She came for a Christmas visit.

So I know Guatemala fairly well. El Tiburon takes place in Antigua, a town I know. The wine bar, Mexican restaurant (not to be confused with Guatemalan food), the textile shops, the rock-n-roll bar, are all real places. So research was easy for Antigua.

The garbage dump is a different story. This is a tremendously sad story of a people group who’ve lived for generations inside the dump, subsiding off the refuse and money from recyclable garbage. Their homes are made of discarded metal sheets and wood sticks.

Last count there were about eleven thousand people living there… six thousand of whom are children. Now the research had to kick into high gear. The Guatemalan government isn’t proud of this community. Many years ago a magazine did a story on these people and there was a general uproar from human rights activists around the world. The result? The government built a wall through the dump to separate the Guajeros from their dump. Now the government can honestly say, “No people live in the dump!” So they crawl through the fence and resume their work. The community is officially called La Limonada. It is extremely difficult to go there and help these people. To visit you must have a guide, which I couldn’t manage.

My story celebrates the strength of the Guajeros. I chose to make them the heroes and characters with integrity. They rescue and protect Sport. In exchange she provides medical attention and education. The little school, Vidas Plenas, is real, but I’ve never been there so its description is a figment of my imagination. Their struggle is real. The harvesting of their youth for gangs is real. Their medical issues are real. I don’t know that I’ve ever enjoyed writing about a group more in my life. It was incredibly challenging to place my main character there.

Currently there are several groups working with the Guajeros. There is much to be done, but it’s almost impossible to help them. The best way is to provide education and continue the fight against drugs. It makes me sad to think of the reality. The only way I could make the situation known was through my story-telling. Let me know what you think after you read El Tiburon.

COUNTERPART goes Paperback and Audio!

I have good news! COUNTERPART is now available as an audiobook. If you've never signed up with Audible I have even better news... you can get COUNTERPART free when you sign up for the first time. Here's the link Counterpart as audiobook.

Great news #2... COUNTERPART is available as a paperback now. This has been my dream since I published it back in 2011, but I refused to buy 500 copies to sit in my garage. Now thanks to Createspace (now merged with Amazon's KDP) you can buy my book, they print it, and then it's shipped to you. Isn't that crazy?

This is exciting for me on several fronts. COUNTERPART is my first published novel. This is where I introduce the much loved characters; Sean McGee and Sport Warrick. This devilish duo was a blast to write about. They are intense, funny, smart, have anger management issues, and they are stuck together--24/7. The conspiracy unravels as they run for their lives, always one step ahead of their enemies.

The Russian accents are handled masterfully by Voice-Over expert, Jim Foster. His interview can be found here. I interviewed him after he narrated my second novel, EL TIBURON. In that case he nailed the Spanish accent. Foster even gives the meowing felines personality! He's done many audiobooks and you can check those out here: All books narrated by Foster.

If you are interested in reading my second book in the McGee series, EL TIBURON, you can get it at Amazon also as an audiobook, ebook, or paperback.

As for me, you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook, or you can check out my blog: A Dashing Bold Adventure

Trailer for El Tiburon by H. Schussman

New Book Cover for El Tiburon

I am happy in a bittersweet way for my new book cover, El Tiburon. It was a difficult decision and honestly not easy for Vinspire Publishing to do.

Let me take you back to the day I received my book cover. I was thrilled to be published and felt a constant flutter of excitement and awe that I'd been published by a real publisher. They accepted my book on the basis of it being an ethnic romance... she's black, he's white. They are madly in love. They have the hots for each other.

The cover did a good job of portraying that passion, but that was only a small glimpse into their lives. Their passion was much deeper than a kiss. It was an "I will do anything to save her life" kind of love. It's a married love.

Vinspire has a history of working with Christian authors. I'm a Christian author. A good fit. I felt Vinspire was visionary for seeing El Tiburon as a romance.

That being said, I began to perceive the cover was not a good representation of the content. Readers who wanted a sultry romance were disappointed. My audience (men and women who like a good suspense conspiracy story) was not interested in buying the book based on the cover. I even had several reviewers comment on the cover.

One of the things I found surprising about El Tiburon was the story was different to me than what the book cover gave me the impression of. I ended up with a well paced thriller, squarely focused on the mission and not a man-saves-woman-and-then-sex or that chauvinistic vein of thriller.~Ronovan

First thing, DON'T LET THE COVER FOOL YOU. This is not a macho man saves beautiful woman thing. That's a husband and wife on the cover. This book DESERVES a worthy cover that tells the story better.


You'd think it would be an easy process, but it's not. Dawn Carrington sent me several options of different models and backdrops, but none were an improvement. The male always looked either to polished or to rough... poor Dawn. She persevered, and finally we decided on no models.

So, I say goodbye to my first book cover designed by
a publisher (I designed Counterpart's cover), and say hello to the new one.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Just received this book review of COUNTERPART. This is the first book in the Sean and Sport conspiracy series (and my first book in general). It really is an honor to receive a review from Ronovan Writes, but especially from the head honcho himself, Ronovan.

It's hard to not be scared when he's reviewing one of my books because he's strict. He makes that clear when he tells you he will let the author decide if their book review should go to his website. If it's bad, you may not want the world to know :)

You can buy COUNTERPART and EL TIBURON at Smashwords.com

January 28, Meet the Author Event

I've been invited to speak at the Arden-Dimick Library coming up soon. I hope you can come if you're in the neighborhood. It would be so cool to have someone come up to me and say, "Hi, you don't know me, but I read your books (or blog, or heard about you, etc)."

These are fun events with a lot of good questions about writing, marketing, blogging, getting published, and most importantly about how my travels interweave with my novels.

Book Review of El Tiburon, by H. Schussman

I was super excited to receive this unofficial review from a reader up in Trinity County, CA

Be sure to send me a review if you want to have it featured here.

Book Talk at the North Highlands-Antelope Public Library

Last year I did this event at the Rancho Cordova Library. It was pretty cool. A bunch of people showed up, some whom I've never met, and many friends from the community.

My book, El Tiburon, is set in Antigua, Guatemala. Before I wrote the book Joe and I went there for a month for language school. I was won over by the people and the history. After a month I had a good feel for the town's layout and the daily vibe. We were there during Semana Santa (Easter Week), which I used for several scenes. We returned for another month of language school and to be the Godparents for our Godson's wedding. That was a great event for us. We were able to be part of the community. We still stood out like sore thumbs, but it was really great. (Check out my travel blog; A Dashing Bold Adventure in November 2009 & August 2013).

I will bring textiles, photos of the city inside the garbage dump, and various items. I will also bring books for you to purchase IF you want to, but I would love it if you came to this event even if you already have El Tiburon. I will also be donating a book to the library.

I also want to remind my audio-readers that El Tiburon was released back in August. Let me know if you would like to review it and I'll get you a copy. I only have a couple of free copies, so make sure you get in touch with me.