A Peek at "Immortal Relations" by G.D. Ogan

I love promoting other authors and wanted to share with you a novel written by one of my car club buddies!

His name is Guy Ogan and he writes as G.D. Ogan and "Immortal Relations" is his first published novel. Now I haven't read it yet, but I do have it in my kindle and once I read it I will share a review, but for now, check it out and if you've read it, please leave G.D. a review on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Relations-ebook/dp/B006ZCBT6G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1338580908&sr=1-1


"Immortal Relations" is my first foray into the field of fiction and I'm working on the second in the series now. Since I'm a "new author" and my book has many new concepts about vampires (for example, my good vampires don't get their blood from the living, human or other animals, they own funeral homes and the law requires that blood be replace with preservative in the body of the deceased before burial. The funeral homes follow funerary procedures in removal of the blood, but rather than dump it down the drain, it is mixed with an anti-coagulant and then delivered to "the Residency" for the good vampires to sustain themselves). The good vampires are guardians of humans from criminals and the vampires who they call "out-of-control"). There is a bit of erotica in this book as vampires don't have the hang-ups humans have and four combat situations. The first is a direct attack from the out-of-control vampires against the good vampires, but the military knowledge of Gary (which is basically my own character) thwarts their attack. The second is where the bad vampires, under a new leader, plan to attack Czech Military Units, change them and then use them and their heavy tanks and aircraft to attach the Residency, where the good vampires are. Again, military technology and tactical planning thwart their plans. Next, the bad vampire gang plan to attack and steal nuclear weapons to use against the good vampires and to blackmail human governments, but the gang runs up against a prepared group from the British Army and Royal Marines, who were warned by the good vampires. Finally, the leader of the gang, travels with the remainder of his gang to try and steal chemical and biological weapons from a poorly guarded old Soviet facility, but warned by the good vampires with the help of the British, Troops of the Russian Federation wipe the gang out.

Mistakes, Reviews, Edit!

Okay Everyone should know by now...I'm a sucker for my daily horoscope and today is no different, but I love how it always works to my advantage when it comes to writing a blog post. So without further ado, here is My Horoscope for today

Don't be afraid to look for (and find) mistakes in your work -- after all, isn't it better to discover something that you did wrong yourself, rather than have the big boss or teacher discover it? Sure, it might require more energy or time to proofread or double check something, but instigating a positive change is always worth the extra effort. You need to build a reputation as someone who gets it right, not just someone who gets it done on time.

Okay so I have been looking for reviews on my novelette "Kyle & Kelly" Which was free this past weekend. Now I'm not a professional reviewer myself and really hate to give negative reviews or even constructive ones, it's just not me, but if I read a book and I like it, I will leave a quick review for the author on amazon or smashwords, or wherever their book is and I will review it here on my blog. Anyway I have been searching for people to review my book but I'm sorry, I am not going to pay someone $25 to give me a review! Besides there are plenty of my copies that people have purchased out there that I shouldn't have to pay for a review.  I'm cheap! I learned that from my dad :-) But I learned from my mom that if you are going to do something, do it right!

So now on to Mistakes!

Also I am not going to pay someone $3 a page to proofread and edit my book. I'm sorry once again, but as I said, I'm cheap." BUT and that's a big word! That doesn't mean that I should just throw it together and publish it without reading through it, time and time again myself. Yes we all use spell checker, including myself, And no it doesn't find "Hi" misspelled, even though it should say "His" Or that you wrote "your" instead of "you're" or even the fact that you somehow put an extra word in like "He is was the whatever" Yes sometimes my grammar is off and my puncuation isn't in the right place, and I have fragmented sentences (Hey, that's how my character said it in my head!) But I don't want people to give me a bad review because I didn't take the time to read through my own story and find my mistakes before I put it out there for the whole world to see.

 I don't want to give you a bad review based on your mistakes. I want to give you a good review because your story intrigued me, made me laugh, or cry. I know it's hard when you have a 100,000 word novel. Print it up and read through it. Enlist the help of family and friends to see if you have mistakes. I know we all get in a hurry.

 I got the idea for "Kyle & Kelly" on the 10th of January after receiving my jury duty summons. I wrote it out and must have read it 50 times before taking the plunge to self publish it. It is only 78 pages. It would have been 113 pages if I hadn't had problems with embedded fonts and formatting, because I ended up using the Arial font instead of Times New Roman. I had it published and available by the 3rd of February (My birthday!) Yes, I was in a hurry also, but I hope that when people read it they will like it or hate it because of the story and not because of mistakes. Please and I can't say this enough.. If you are cheap like I am, read and reread your story, find your mistakes, and be proud of your work.

If anyone would like to read "Kyle & Kelly" and review it and yes look for my mistakes, let me know and I can send you a copy.  

Oh and just so you know, I have very tough skin and you can't offend me, unless you tell me I'm rude, which seems to cause little mental breakdowns on my part!

:-) Have a great day everyone! 

Success!

I think society places too much emphasis on failure, instead of each step of our success. For me, just sitting down and writing the book, saying I can do it, and then doing it, is the first step of being successful.
Success should be taken in baby steps.
1. Writing the book. If you told yourself you were going to write a book and you do it,
Pat yourself on the back.
You've just taken your first step and you were Successful.
2. Family and friends read you book and say, "WOW, you wrote this? This is awesome!
Be prepared, not everyone will like what you wrote. But don't forget to give yourself a pat on the back!
3. You get published or you publish it yourself. Either way it's out there now.
That's one of your baby steps, right? Give yourself Another pat on the back.
4. Your first copy sells! Awesome!
Boy my back is getting sore from all these pats,
 Oh wait, personally, I am still at step one, but to me, I am successful, so far anyways.

5.You will find naysayers along your way to success.
They are the ones who ask,
Are you making any money at this?
Is it worth your time?
Have you sold a million copies yet?
Are you rich and famous?

Success is what you want from what you do.
If you are writing that book to make a million dollars, or sell a million copies,
 then I have to say you are setting yourself up for failure.

Let's go back to step 2. Be prepared, not everyone will like what you wrote.
We all have our own tastes in life, whether it's what we read, eat, or watch on TV.
Not everyone will love Chinese, Italian, or even Indian food, nor does everyone read romance, paranormal, history or whatever genre that's out there.

I think the success comes from people liking what you create and coming back and asking for more.
Picture a very successful pizza joint in NY. Let's say they get Rave reviews and people are telling you,
"You have got to try their pizza! It's the best.
Yeah well maybe it's also expensive or you don't like pizza.
 (What! You don't like pizza? What is wrong with you?)
And there you have it. Not everyone is going to eat there, but their success doesn't rely on everyone.

Bottom line, "You can't please everyone."

I think that as a writer our success is sharing something that we enjoy. We want people to read what we write, we want to share our emotions, our thoughts and feelings. Give them a little glimpse into our heads, or share with them the beauty we see through our eyes.

So I'll leave you with this thought;
Take your baby steps, pat yourself on the back, and know that whatever you do, you are successful.

Happy Hump day everyone!

Oh and here is the link to read about Heather's success into self publishing.
Thanks Heather for sharing, because you helped me write my blog today and gave me inspiration  to succeed at whatever I do. So give yourself a pat on the back!

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/11/notes-from-a-self-publishing-success-story/

Had to share another link! http://www.genreality.net/stephen-king-fear-is-at-the-root-of-all-bad-writing/comment-page-1#comment-12407

Query, Synopsis, Cover letter? EEK!

Okay, I know how to write the query.
I've figured out how to write the synopsis.
But what the heck do I put in a cover letter?

Yes, I know that should be the easiest out of the three, but.........

It's like my poor son, filling out job applications and he has no job history to report
 because he's never had a job!

Well that's me. I have written my first novel and yet have no history.
Nothing ever published, no awards....

So what do you put on that cover letter?
Do you list the blogs you write?
Your three facebook pages you have?
Your twitter account?
The guest blog you wrote for someone else's blog?