Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Book 3 of the Seffi Wardwell mysteries really is coming soon... depending on how you define "soon." I'm plugging away at the edits, and my cover artist has finished the semester and is at work on the cover (Right, Maggie?). I can't believe how long this is all taking. When will I learn that the revision stage is hard, and always takes longer than it should? And why?  Because I avoid it, and because it really does take a long time to work through the whole book so many times. Anyway, here is the blurb, and as soon as I have a cover I will set up pre-orders and give myself a hard and fast launch date! Feel free to offer suggestions on the blurb--nothing is set in stone yet! Who rubbed out the writer?   Winter in Maine is long, dark, and cold, and California transplant Seffi Wardwell is combating the winter blues with a full calendar. Tending the plants at the local bed-and-breakfast, writing reports for the library, and generally keeping an eye on...

Perhaps because my new book-- A Coastal Corpse-- has been such a challenge to write, rewrite, and revise, I feel like I ought to have something helpful to say about the process. After 10 novels and countless short stories, I have learned something, right? Some days I'm not so sure about that (Maybe this should be an Insecure Writers Support Group post!) In all seriousness, though, I do have a few thoughts on the subject, some of which might be helpful to others. Today I'm going to talk about the radical things that may have to happen after I've finished the first draft and let it sit a while. This is all in 1st person because who knows if any of it applies to anyone but me? What now? I've let my MS rest for however long I need (2 weeks to 6 months?). I've re-read it and made notes. What next? Things can go two ways at this point. I might decide that the basic structure is sound, and move on to the next level of editing (a topic for another day). More commonly I fin...

How goes the battle? First things first:  what's going on with the writing? Sad reality: making major improvements in a manuscript is... hard work. And I'm not always up for that. I'm really trying, though, and still hope to have some real progress before I leave for the desert at the end of the month. I won't promise to have a finished revision, though. Some days it progresses, some days it doesn't. The business of writing: promotions Last week was the Smashwords "Read an ebook week" sale. I put nearly all my books on sale at up to 50% off, and selected three to be free, in addition to the two BookElves anthologies in which I have stories. Here's the result: I gave away 13 books for free. I sold none. Will those 13 free books get me any additional readers? That's the hope, but I have my doubts. How many books are on your ereader, picked up because they were free and it was easy? We do what we can to encourage people to move on to the next boo...