Ask a male author about your male character traits or thoughts.

Amazon links to my stories: The Chess Master, Cinnamon & Sugar, Autumn Breeze, A More Perfect Union, Double Happiness, The Wolves of Sherwood Forest, Neanderthals and the Garden of Eden can be found down the right side of the blog. Another site very useful in categorizing books in their proper order is: https://www.booksradar.com/richard-rw/richard.html


Visit my website at: https://rwrichardnet.wordpress.com/

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Hey—I'm an older Italian—lissen a me. 3/25/2012

I know this is a bit of a stretch from the male POV. Maybe not. They say older Italian males like to share their lives' experiences even if it means giving up a secret or something they had to figure out to give themselves an advantage in the marketplace. Guilty, but I do this out of love for you. Yes, you there, you doll.

Many of us are tempted to put our novellas in the Kindle store either to supplement our career with a publisher(s) or to indie-publish while we wait for that all important call from agent or editor.

I discovered a trick to stay on a top hundred Kindle list. Choose a category that doesn’t have many entrees, but often these categories aren’t assessable from your KDP author/publisher site. However, there’s a way around it. For instance, my new novella, The Wolves of Sherwood Forest, was originally listed under Fiction>Historical Fiction & Fiction > Romance > Historical Romance. It’s actually a romantic comedy but the closest I could find in the Kindle store was Fiction > Comic. So I wrote them. It turns out you can’t do it yourself. Below is the string of how I got to be 10th on Fiction>Comic. This just started and I expect it to climb higher. Being listed like this leads to more sales (so I have observed) and at the end of my novella I’ve plugged my original novel written & indie-published back in 2007, Neanderthals and the Garden of Eden. Since the books are related to each other by wolves (but not in style & I warn my reader) my older book’s sales numbers have gone up anyway.

EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE WITH KINDLE TECHS:

Hi, (from Bob)
I noticed that in the Kindle store under Fiction is Comic Fiction but I couldn't find that category when preparing my novella for Kindle. Is there something I'm missing?
Thanks,
RW Richard

Hello, (from KDP)

We can add a total of two categories that aren't currently available to select in your KDP Bookshelf, as long as they already exist in the Kindle Store. If you'd like us to manually change your category, you'll first need to remove the current categories. Here's how:

1. Visit https://kdp.amazon.com and log in.
2. Check the box at the left side of the book and then click on the "Actions" button at the top left, then click "Edit book details."
3. Scroll down to the "Target Your Book to Customers" section and click "Add categories."
4. Choose the categories on the right side of the screen, then click "Remove category."
5. Scroll down the category list on the left side of the screen, and choose the last category - "NON-CLASSIFIABLE."
Click on "Save."
7. Scroll down the page and click "Save and Continue."
8. You'll then be directed to the "Rights & Pricing" section. Check the box at the bottom of the screen to accept the Terms & Conditions, then click "Save and Publish."
After you have done this, reply to us with the exact path of the categories you wish to add (as shown in the example below), and we will add the categories for your title. *Please know that we can only add categories that are already available in Kindle Store.*
Example: Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Mysticism

I sent them the paths I mentioned above. (Bob)                   

Hello, (from KDP)
 
In order to provide our customers with a more relevant searching experience and achieve parity with our guidelines for physical books, we can only add a maximum of 2 browse categories for titles on the Kindle store.
 
I've (KDP) added your book, "The Wolves of Sherwood Forest," to the following categories:
 
Kindle Store > Kindle Ebooks > Fiction > Comic Fiction
Kindle Store > Kindle Ebooks > Fiction > Romance > Historical Romance
This change will take effect on the Amazon website within 72 hours.
 
Regarding your other query on categories, please note that when you choose a broader category path, your book will be available in the search results for the broader section. If, however, you select a more specific category path, your book will show up in the results for the specific section alone. Also, when you change the category paths for your books, the category ranking for your book will also change.
 
I hope this helps. Thanks for using Amazon KDP

Sunday, March 18, 2012

TRUE CONFESSIONS 3/18/2012

TRUE CONFESSIONS 3/18/2012

When I said I was starting this blog about the male POV, a fellow RWA member asked me if I’d be confessing. Haven’t been in the church box for a while. Also, this isn’t really supposed to be personal, but I did say I’d be honest. I thought I could pin the trait on some anonymous guy.
 
So just once for the sake of women everywhere who don’t believe a guy could feel this way.

Truly confessing right here, right now.

Wait, the doorbell rang.
 
Okay, I’m back.
 
I wonder what happened to my high school sweetheart. It was September 1965. We sat on a bluff overlooking the swim club where we worked and played. I said goodbye because I was going away to college and she was starting her senior year in high school. She fell to pieces. I didn’t do any better. There is not a week that goes by in all these years that I don’t think about her. Her family moved away, and since then I had no idea where she went. You’d think with Facebook, and all the other internet resources I’d be able to find her. No such luck. All I want to know is if she’s doing well, did she marry (like I did), how many kids, how they are doing. What she thought of our sweet love.

Love is infinite. It is perfectly possible to care about another person without disturbing your marriage. Yes, I’m a romantic. I hardly remember what we talked about. I do remember kissing her for hours at a time. I enjoyed being together, every moment.

Every moment of the heart builds the true treasures of life.
 
Am I a typical guy? Maybe not, but it certainly can be another arrow in your quiver when you build your hero or male character’s past or even could be the basis for a resurrection story where the hero searches and finds his heroine.
 
Wherever you are Margie Miller, I wish you the best. I hope you are happy. I am. I'd be happier if I knew you and yours were well.

Bob

Monday, March 12, 2012

UNLIKELY HEROES AND HEROINES 3/12/2012

Unlikely heroes and heroines

Apparently I caused a controversy with this lead in:

The author said, “I've adequately disgraced the legend of Robin Hood and Lady Marian with the release of this lusty, irreverent novella: THE WOLVES OF SHERWOOD FOREST. For one thing I miscast a 22 year old Marian who in two ways resembles Dolly Parton, and not to be outdone, Robin is the world's first tree hugger. Do run out and hug a tree today. It will stir unusual feelings. Please forgive me Dolly, you’re beautiful.”

Genre: Historical Romance Novella


A respected writer, not to name names, I’ll just call her ‘fiery redhead’ said that women readers of romance fiction hate (don’t want to read about) heroines with big boobs. There may be no such thing as bad publicity. I sold 1400 copies in 3 days and made it to #8 on Kindle’s free historicals, #15 in historical romance, #83 of all romances, #256 of all fiction.

Let’s think beyond the box. If your muse (or marketing savvy) leads you to write about a heroine with big boobs or a hero with a small penis, do it. Actually I never read anything about a hero who wasn’t endowed. Why is it the guy is always endowed and the woman is never? If you guys know me by now, my personal preferences have nothing to do with this story. Some guys transcend their own idea of beauty to love the woman, no matter what she looks like.

Has Hemmingway condemned us to only write what we know? Hey, Earnest, we know a lot. Humans were put on this Earth to question, to ask what if. If your critique group is all over you for expressing yourself in a manner they aren’t used to, **** it. I do listen and use the criticism as a double check. Honor your vision, enjoy yourself while writing a story the way you want to write it. Besides, the last thing anybody in a critique group should want to comment on is the writer’s voice. This is not just my advice, Maya Banks said the same thing when she visited RWA San Diego last year.

Unlikely heroes and heroines:
Frumpy
Bald
103 years old — who waited his whole life to meet his soulmate.
Frumpy (the guy)
Bald (the woman)
Etc.
PAUSE: Many romance authors write a heroine who is not comfortable with themselves in some physical way. True most readers are women and they more easily identify with someone like themselves and sometimes place themselves into the fantasy. For the 9%+ male readers, no such accomodation is usually offered.

What about blind heroines? In a few weeks Deidre Knight, who has written blind heroines, is coming to speak at RWASD. Writing blind heroines is a very difficult task, because we take away a sense. Maybe not as hard as you think, memories of what things looked like play big as a survival tool, for instance.

Okay maybe frumpy women and less tall guys don’t make good heroes and heroines, but they might be memorable and don’t we fall in love with the character’s heart (the way they act) first and take everything else for granted? How many of us remember the color of her eyes? We will remember a unique personality.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Visiting Ann Siracusa's blog this week 3/4/2012

I'm excited to be a guest on Ann Siracusa's blog soon. Instead of posting here, I'll save my fire for her excellent blog. Please visit her at http://www.rannsiracusa.com/blog

Also slowing me down today, I tried to publish on Kindle my novella, The Wolves of Sherwood Forest. They don't take Corel Draw files for cover shots, so I'm attempting to convert to jpg. Wish me luck.

Bob