Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

amwriting

Can You Climb A Mountain?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

It’s been a bit of a weird Spring here in the good old USA and in other parts of the world. Seems the wackier it gets out there, the more I retreat to my books and happy ending tv shows. Then I come across a story that puts my perspective firmly in place.

These veterans accomplished an amazing feat in February and I wanted to share it. Through grit and determination, they climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. That may sound like a bit of a task, but these military foot soldiers are missing body parts which would make the climb a challenge even if they had all their digits.

Even the “normie” cameraman had a hard go of it and he had all his appendages. The documentary should be out the end of this year, you can catch up with this group at

www.kilimanjarowarriors.com

When it comes to being WIA, wounded in action, the hard road begins afterwards. The long hours and months it takes to not only get physically well, but to also deal with the mental and emotional scars. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have left us with many wounded warriors, each one an important story.

These are the kind of tales which make me write about my fellow veterans and talk about the day-to-day courage of veterans that most folks never see. It seems veterans and especially wounded warriors have been climbing this mountain for years now. Go grunts!

I salute these hard-charging men and women who are still fighting, for themselves and others who can’t make the trip. Take a look. Freedom isn’t free and these veterans are the best of the best.

KILIMANJARO WARRIORS: Teaser Trailer 1 from Bevan B. Bell on Vimeo.

How Do Author Web Sites/Blogs Reflect Multiple Genres?

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by Kimberly A. Cook       (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Last week I took a web site and blog tour of my favorite authors for research purposes. Since I write both non-fiction and fiction for publication, I wanted to see how the best are handling this split personality marketing challenge.

Two of my keeper shelves of favorite author books. Okay, maybe floor to ceiling keeper bookshelves is more accurate, truthfully.
Two of my keeper shelves of favorite author books. Okay, maybe floor to ceiling keeper bookshelves is more accurate, truthfully.

It seems there are as many answers as there are authors. It also depends on where the author’s main focus is, writing only or writing and speaking gigs. This makes sense since we all write for our own reasons and goals.

Looking at the queen of romance fiction, Nora Roberts solved the problem when she wrote mystery books by making her J.D. Robb namesake another person. When she came out of the mystery closet with her two different author photos on the back of one book, it was a true split personality. Now she links to her mystery blog from the top of her main website www.noraroberts.com

Author Kate Carlisle proudly shows off her split personality by letting the visitor choose whether she wants romance or mystery, since she publishes both. Her great mystery series is one of my favorites, so this is working for both her romance and mystery fans. Her blog is the same for both sides of her website. See her beautiful landing page at www.katecarlisle.com

Non-fiction and fiction author Joanna Penn has her blog for writers and writer education at www.thecreativepenn.com where she shows her fiction and non-fiction titles. Her fiction thriller website at www.jfpenn.com has a thriller fiction blog attached to it. She split her online marketing footprint on purpose to separate her fiction readers from her non-fiction readers.

Still leaves me up in the air about how I want to handle the non-fiction vs. fiction issue. So who is my marketing mentor, my go-to-guru when I wonder about these kinds of decisions? Debbie Macomber. Not only is she an amazing romance fiction author, she is a non-fiction and children’s book author too. She keeps it all together on her main website and lists all her books under books. So simple yet classic. Love it. Check out her printable book list at www.debbiemacomber.com to see the elegant way she lists and groups all her books. She makes it easy for her readers.

Simple is best for me. I like to think of it as the Coco Chanel guide to author website design. Fine lines and no clutter. Is my website like this? Not now, but this Fall I think a re-design is required. In a publishing world where we can finally pick and choose what we write and when and how we publish, this is one decision I’m glad I can quit tearing my hair out about; a book is a book is a book. What a concept!

 

Want To Be A Successful Indie Author?

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by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

My brain has been on fire the past two weeks. I’ve been reading a new book, “Write. Publish, Repeat.” by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant and with David Wright of the Self Publishing Podcast. The book is chockfull of great advice for career indie authors and I mean folks who want to publish lots of books. Many books.

(Truth in blogging: Book buy link in graphic below. I think I get about 5 cents per copy if you buy from this link, so there might be a McDonald’s Happy Meal in my future! Could not figure out the image size thing – sigh.)

These three writers are making a full-time living by producing like crazy and having a viable marketing plan on how they group their products. It’s like taking the book series concept and putting it on Red Bull – hard-charging. The majority of their work is fiction, which we know is an even bigger challenge as an indie publisher, so these guys have got game.

They also are very clear; building a publishing career takes time and hard work. Period. I purchased the ebook and it ended up being 900+ pages on my Nook with the larger font size I use. At 5.99, a bargain. In the back of the book they had several interviews with self-published indie authors. C.J. Lyons mentioned the book, “Start With Why,” by Simon Sinek in her profile, so I bought and downloaded that gem. Another great read, halfway through it.

Now the interesting part is some of the ideas in the Why book contradict a few things in the “Write. Publish. Repeat.” book. What does this mean? Nobody has all the answers and fairy dust may be the ultimate answer.

With both traditional and indie authors crossing the lines in both publishing directions, what remains is each writer/author makes the best choice for how they want to build a publishing career. Technology has put the publishing power back in the hands of authors. We get to decide what we want with the most flexibility since Benjamin Franklin self published.

And with “great power comes great responsibility,” like Spiderman was told. We need to be professionals and wear two hats, artist and CEO/CFO. Both books are helping me clarify my current vision from what I was thinking back in 2006 when I decided to self publish.

Back then I thought “Why should I pimp my writing out to someone else and pay them when I care the most about my work?” It’s the same reason I have a target retirement stock fund and not a stockbroker; I can churn my own money, thank you very much. If anybody is going to pimp/promote my work, it’s me. It’s a lot faster to publish too when you have a polished and pristine manuscript ready to go.

Check out the book and you don’t have buy it, but it’s a great read if you want a career as an indie author.

P.S. Book is NOT an April Fools Day thing. Really. It’s legit.

How Do Writers Learn, Purge And Know What Their Book Is About?

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by Kimberly A. Cook              (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Met with my writer support group this past weekend and it always makes me feel better, more motivated and not quite so neurotic. We creatives have challenges on many levels when it comes to combining life and art.

There were three topics which came up that I thought it would be fun to discuss. Here goes.

1. We don’t learn a writing or life lesson until we are ready; no matter how many times it tries to smack us in the chops.  An experienced writer declared she made a breakthrough with her current memoir when she realized who her ideal reader would be and that she was actually writing a long feature story. A trained news journalist and business writer, this shift in mind revelation made all the difference in the world when she was able to discover it.

When I crossed over from newspaper writing to fiction, it seemed pretty easy for me since I had been the features section editor on the paper. Feature stories are some of the best training in the world for fiction since your story lives and dies with quotes (dialogue), you have a beginning, middle and end of the feature (same as a chapter and book), and the one difference is instead of tying up the end of the story, you put a honk’in hook at the end to drag the reader into the next chapter. My fiction chapters have always been about the same length as a long feature story, imagine that.

2. Is cleaning our offices and purging files procrastination or part of the creative process? Yes! Right on both counts. But we decided as a group that its more of the process for organizing chaos and letting your muse get ready to sweep out the cobwebs in the subconscious and gear up for the next project. Now if this takes years, there is a bit of a procrastination problem, but it took Margaret Mitchell twelve years to write “Gone With The Wind,” so what do we know about deadlines? To each writer their own process.

3. Only the writer/author knows what the story is going to be and that may be a crap shoot on any given day. My writing teacher Dee Lopez used to say,” No one really knows what their book is about until after they’ve written at least eight chapters.” Many times what you find when you finish a first draft of fiction is it started out as one book and ended up as another; that is the magic of imagination, fairy dust and creation. Which also means no one else can write your book for you, you have to do it yourself.

So, back to writing!

 

Got Some Knitting Time? The Penguins Need Us!

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

I’m always looking for new fun things to knit and a friend alerted me to this current need. The penguins Downunder in Australia need sweaters to help them recover from oil spills. Knitting sweaters for penguins? Does life get any better than that?

So for this Quirky Friday let’s all whip out our knitting needles and get busy knitting small sweaters for our fav flipper guys and gals. Check out the video. Happy Quirky Friday!

Do You Have Writer Persistence?

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by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Cleaning out the papers in my office last weekend , a lifelong quest, I stumbled across my production worksheet for 2013. Very organized, all my writing projects listed, it was a plan. Unfortunately life intervened and not one of those projects got finished.

Persistence gets bulbs out of the ground to become flowers. Make like a bulb and bloom. Spring rocks!
Persistence gets bulbs out of the ground to become flowers. Make like a bulb and bloom. Spring rocks!

But, it does give me a head start on my 2014-2015 to do list! The cliché “life is what happens while you’re making plans” is a cliché because life does happen. The older I get the more I’ve learned to give myself a break, to put on my big girl shoes and keep moving. The universe does respond to action and it’s harder to hit a moving target, so serpentine! as my Drill Sergeant would say.

So it was with heartwarming glee that I read about an author who was rejected 111 times over nine years trying to get his fiction novel “The Lost Get-Back Boogie,” published. When it did get published, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. See, it does happen. Persistence can pay off.

The author? James Lee Burke. A co-worker at the day job was reading his book, “In The Moon of Red Ponies.” I’m always spying on what people are reading; market research. She told me his words were “strung together like silk.” Now that makes me sit up and stare. What writer wouldn’t kill to have a reader describe their prose that way?

Needless to say, I will be getting a book or two of his to put in my read pile. Whenever I get a little blue about where my writing career is not going, these kind of success stories lift my spirits and make me keep chugging along. Am I doing this for the money? Hell no. I write because I must, pure and simple.

If I can entertain and educate along the way, that’s gravy. Maybe one day I too will be one of those 45-year overnight successes. It could happen! Be persistent with your writing dreams, they might come true. Surprise yourself.

Link:      http://jamesleeburke.com/about_the_author.html