Self publishing advice from writing to marketing and everything in-between.
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Self Publishing Advisor
Insanity by Murder: A Cidee Washington Mystery
by W. Rosser Wilson
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 9781478756149
Synopsis*:
Doctor Lee is a surgeon gone mad. John Lee is riddled with guilt and psychologically traumatized by the unexpected postoperative death of a special patient ten years before. Heavily medicated, impoverished, and on the county dole, Dr. Lee lives alone in a ramshackle single-wide trailer with his dog, Sunny, on the banks of a Virginia river. One hot summer day he is visited by Sarah, a nurse and past lover, who confesses that all this time she has known that “Thumbs” Berringer–her husband and Dr. Lee’s surgical rival–murdered the patient out of spite. This revelation enrages Dr. Lee and unleashes a series of events that lead to Sarah’s death and the disappearance of Dr. Lee and Sarah’s husband…and the local sheriff must seek the help of two most unlikely individuals in solving the case. Insanity of Murder is a humorous yet riveting mystery novel about guilt, madness, and murder.
– reviewed by Amazon Customer
Riveting yet humorous mystery about a surgeon driven mad by his patient’s murder. A shocking end.
– reviewed by Foreword Reviews
Excellent read, unique mix of characters and plot. Wilson makes the unlikely feasible by giving us the details of personality we need to understand the often bizarre choices his players make. He knows the details of the culture in which his story plays out, has an uncluttered style and a strong sense of how to maintain tension all the way to the last line. Philip
– Amazon Reviewer Philip R. Hirsh Jr.
Thanks for reading! Keep up with the latest in the world of indie and self-published books by watching this space!
Self Publishing Advisor
Some highlights from this month in the world of self-publishing, specifically new releases written by self-publishing authors and published by independent presses! Today we’ll be featuring brand-new releases in the Outskirts Press Bookstore!
Are you looking for a whodunit to liven up your October evenings? You can’t go wrong with Reginald Buchanan’s Deceived, a killer story with a serious twist. It follows the story of Joan Witherspoon, a rising star of an athlete and the kind of senior everyone hopes their children grow up to be: a bright spark, full of life and passion. But her life is about to get very complicated indeed. Tragedy strikes while she’s away at volleyball practice, and while her parents’ deaths are explained away by the local law enforcement at the time, she finds herself years later at the heart of a burgeoning serial murder story. There’s plenty of deceit to go around, as the book’s title indicates, but you won’t see the end coming until it arrives! Sure, it may not be as overtly spooky as a book with “Halloween” in the title, but Deceived is a fantastically creepy exploration of the various sides of grief, tragedy, and the mind of a killer.
On a lighter note, who hasn’t wanted to go backpacking or river boating or parasailing through Europe? (Okay, so that last one may be a bit too much, but there’s always room for a personal fantasy or two in the midst of a book review!) Francis J. Clauss is here to walk us through the jewel of the grand European tour of ages gone by: Italy, land of Roman ruins and lush wineries and volcanoes galore. But Clauss has something more to offer than just a smidgen of sight-seeing! A regular at the San Francisco Opera, West Bay Opera in Palo Alto, Opera San Jose, Santa Fe Opera, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and many foreign venues, he and his wife have volunteered behind and in front of the scenes at various venues and know the lay of the operatic land, so to speak. In this volume, Clauss takes readers on a journey through not just the heart of Italy’s opera scene, but also the history of opera and why it has become such an emotional lynch-pin for those like him, and why it has become a city- and nation-building force throughout the ages. Fascinating, right? More than worth a look!
Following up on the joyous ride that was the first book in this series, Tom Boyhan is back with a new installment! If you or someone you know has loved Harry Potter, The Adventurer’s Guide to Successful Escapes, or How to Train Your Dragon, here’s another fantastic fantasy series for young readers that really knows how to blow your socks off! With fire! Dragonfire! What’s cooler than that? I’ll tell you what: a story which combines the allure of martial arts (they win belts!) with boarding school (which we’d much rather read about than attend, except when it’s a magical boarding school for magical kids and DRAGONS) and podracing. I mean, dragon racing! Dragon racing is even cooler than podracing, in our humble opinion. But of course, not all is fun and games at the academy, and our intrepid cast of heroes must fight a shadowy organization in order to survive, save the world, and make it to class on time in the morning. They’ve got a full semester ahead of them, and we have a full evening by the fire reading ahead of us. Can’t wait for book three!
Once upon a time there was a lady (me) who—over ten years—developed a non-fiction book. As you might imagine, there were more “stops” than “starts” and many “in-between times” when the manuscript pages simply sat in a box in the closet. Then photography became part of the adventure and I began placing selections in the manuscript. I enjoyed the creation of each and every paragraph and page. Then came the moment with it was completed, and before the last manuscript page fell from the printer, I knew it would be highly unlikely to find a traditional publisher. They had never “heard” of this very nice lady who loved the craft of writing and wanted to encourage other writers. Many of my friends—published authors—encouraged me to check out the field of self-publishing companies. (Of course, you know I selected the company that supports this blog, however, I must share more of the story.)
The publishing world is a BIG place and at one time (not so many years ago) the predictions were given that “real, hold-in-your-hand” books would soon be a thing of the past. In our era of POD (Print on Demand) technology, a manuscript can be published—and viewed online—in an hour or less. We have IPad size Notebooks and Kindles that download thousand-page books before we can repeat the title. Our desktop and laptop computers will turn-the-pages as we read our selection. Was this quiet and somewhat shy lady going to jump into that world?
I’ll leave the storyline now and tell you what I did—because my position is that REAL BOOKS will never disappear because of the true and felt-need that people enjoy holding their books in their hands.
What I discovered is that there are many basic and foundational processes when getting our books published. However, not all companies approach them in the same way. I needed to be clear about the differences between traditional publishing and self-publishing. I needed a personal guide who would explain all the publishing options (services) their company offered—someone who would hear what I told them about my book and the audience it could reach—and then help me select the perfect combination of services to achiever my publishing goals.
If you’ve read any of my previous blogs (archived back to 2013), you’ll know that I have published FIREPROOF PROVERBS, A Writer’s Study of Words, and I could not have fulfilled that dream (to help other writers break through writer’s block) without the help of my Outskirts Press, Publishing Consultant, Jodee Thayer! Her confidence in me and the manuscript gave me the courage to invest in myself and every writer who holds that book in their hands. That is my hope for every Reader of this blog—to collaborate with your own Jodee Thayer—and see your dreams come true! ⚓︎
Last week, I started this series on the subject of visions and visionaries, and what it means to be a future-thinker as an author. I teased at the close of that post that I’d be returning to the subject this week with some key pointers on how to become one of these people who manages to “think different” (as Steve Jobs might say) and change the world, or at least the publishing industry as we know it, while at it. I’m here to deliver on that tease!
If you go out and Google “how to become a visionary,” you’re liable to run up against a wall of more clickbait than you’ll know what to do with. I know that I did. And worst of all, very little of the advice doled out by heavyweight publications Inc, Psychology Today, Forbes, and Business Insider apply to us, as overextended self-publishing authors (often exhausted, or limited in terms of emotional, energetic, and financial budgets to boot), in ways that are both tangible and possible to achieve. Either that, or the points just don’t make sense.
Some of their points, however, we like. I’ve condensed down a list of my top 6 suggestions for steps any self-publishing author can take (or leave, depending on schedule and other constraints). Mix and match to your heart’s content, and know that even if you just make gains on one or two of these points, you’re still making progress towards becoming that great and majestic thing: a visionary.
And we’ll always be here to support you while at it.
You are not alone. ♣︎
Self Publishing Advisor 