Our Video Shoot in South Texas & Matamoros

The Galleys Are Here! The Galleys Are Here!

I'm shouting because the galleys for A Different Drum arrived in my inbox the other day. The galleys are the PDF version of the book as it will actually appear in print. It's my job to proofread the galleys and send a list of corrections to my editor. So I commenced reading the entire book (again!) It never ceases to amaze me that after so many readings and so many eyes on this thing, there are still mistakes! Plus therre were some formatting errors made when the galleys were done (like bold instead of italic). But all in all, not much to worry about. The Wild Rose Press has done a great job with making the book beautiful.

I have to say, there is something pretty heady about seeing your words in print, your name in print, your dedication, etc. all there. Very cool.

The Book Trailer is Alive!

It's finally finished. We've been working for several weeks on the trailer and it's done! We're so pleased with how it turned out. I hope you like it, too. You can see it bigger on the website:

www.cindycausey.com

Book in Motion

The latest and greatest thing in book promotion is guess what--video trailers. They act like little mini commercials for your book, with images that move, music, graphics, and even voiceovers. This is perfect for me since Scott and I have a video production business. So we have been busy building a video trailer for A Different Drum. I wrote a script and actually bought some images online. We have production music and we found the perfect motorcycle-riding kind of song and will add some sound effects, too. Scott is doing the voiceover, "In a world where sheriffs ride cycles and women get stranded on highways. . . " You know the kind of voice I mean. He used to be in radio and has this great "radio" voice. The hardest part was finding pictures of men and women who look like my characters: perky, curly-haired blond woman and brooding, pony-tailed half-Native American man. Not easy. But it's coming together and I'll post it here when it's a wrap--as they say.

Then maybe we'll even get into the book trailer business.

ALL ABOUT STYLE

The edits are here! If it weren't for the fact that I've been an advertising copywriter for most of my life, and a fiction writer with a critique group for that same length of time, I would probably feel threatened by the email that said my editor was sending the edits for the manuscript. But I am no stranger to change, criticism, or the whimsical notions of others. So I welcome the edits because it means another step in the publishing process is complete and we are closer to BOOK IN HAND!

Plus she had very nice words for me and I quote them here. "Since your story was so well-written, it's only going to require one round of initial edits (I often have to do as many as 3!). "

That made my day!

Anyway I'm going through the changes one by one and noticing a pattern. I have used a certain "style" (translate that as rules for writing) since my college days and my editor is clearly using a different "style" regarding a few things. But, she's the boss, so I will add the commas and the rest gladly. None of it changes the story one iota, so I'm pleased to do it. And when I submit to them again, which I will, I'll know ahead of time and maybe she won't make ANY CHANGES AT ALL. Yeah, right.

So, I'm off to edit and whistling a happy tune all the while.

THE COVER IS HERE!

I will try to keep from posting in all caps so that I will appear professional and polished and cool about the fact that MY COVER ARRIVED!!! Sorry. So The Wild Rose Press sent over my cover yesterday and I am thrilled with the way it looks. The artist, Angela Anderson, did a great job capturing the wild New Mexico desert and the even wilder hero, motorcycle-riding sherrif, Drummond Wolfe. I've posted a picture here so you can see, too. So anyway, now I can use the image for marketing, etc. and trying to boost excitement. If only I knew WHEN the book would be out, then I could plan better. But plan I will, nonetheless. WOOHOO!

A DIGRESSION

I know I promised that this blog would be about the publishing process, but not much is happening there at the moment, so I want to talk about our daughter, Sarah. A beautiful young woman, Sarah left two weeks ago for Kyrgyzstan where she will serve for 27 months in the Peace Corps. This is certainly the hardest thing she's done in her young life and it isn't that easy for us, either, let me tell you. Adam, our son, moved, jobless and firendless to Chicago a few years ago to go to Second City Comedy School, and that nearly killed me. And he was IN THE COUNTRY, a phone call away, but jobless and friendless nonetheless and it was hard. So you can imagine how it is to send your child halfway around the world, to the middle of Asia, nestled cozily between Mongolia and Tajikistan. Her cell phone doesn't work there. We're using a communication system that's akin to "I'll tell two friends and you tell two friends and so on and so on." Anyway, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also the hefty language barrier (they speak Russian, she speaks American), the food barrier, the outhouse barrier, the no air conditioning barrier and the walking everywhere barrier. But, and here's the great thing about Sarah, she's powering through. Blisters, sticky sweatiness, lonliness, hunger, homesickness, long hours studying a language where a "c" is an "s" and a "p" is an "r", and a rooster outside her window that wakes her at the crack of dawn will not sway her. At least not today. Needless to say, we're very proud of her. You can read her blog (few and far between, but fascinating), the link is at right.

And now, back to writing.