Category Archives: Colette Black

By Colette Black and Evan Braun.

As I (Evan) mentioned in my post yesterday, we’ve got giveaways coming up. Lots and lots of giveaways. This is a writing blog, so it should surprise no one that we’re mostly giving away free books. But there’s more to it than that, of course! So how do you win all this great stuff? Well, that’s easy, and Colette is here to explain it to you.

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Starting today, we will have a new set of giveaways each week. They will last one week, until midnight EST of the following Sunday. Every week we’ll have new prizes, including but not limited to: eBooks, gift cards, signed paperback books, cash prizes, etc. We will have seven prizes to win each week. More details are available on our website’s right sidebar, under “Giveaway Celebration.” Just go to the sidebar and click on one of the entry forms, then follow the actions available (for example, leaving comments on our posts, sharing and talking about our posts on Facebook and Twitter, etc.). Some actions are worth more than one entry, and some actions can be done more than once during the week.

Winners will be notified within 48 hours of the end of each week and requested to rank prizes in their order of preference. The first-place winner will receive first choice, second-place will receive second choice of prizes still available, and so on. Because we’ll have seven winners, we hope that everyone will respond quickly so we can distribute the prizes as soon as possible. If someone doesn’t respond within forty-eight hours, we will be forced to withdraw them from the contest and award their prize to another entrant.

We have so many amazing gifts, and people can win more than once, so we look forward to a fun month of prizes and great posts as we celebrate the special occasion of our 1000th post next week on Wednesday, August 12. Good luck to all, and to all a good August!

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Thanks, Colette. Before I go, I wanted to give a rundown on the great prizes available during Week One. Check out the box in the right sidebar for more information on these books and authors:

Mary Pletsch: Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with the Gods (anthology)
Colette Black: Noble Ark
Evan Braun: The Book of Creation: Book One of The Watchers Chronicle
Nathan Barra: One Horn to Rule Them All (anthology). This very special prize comes with a crocheted purple unicorn!
Travis Heerman: Heart of the Ronin
Sam Knight: A Whiskey Jack in a Murder of Crows
Teyla Branton: The Change

Let the games begin!

The Gift of Gratitude

July 7, 2015

Colette Black

Colette Black Doing Good in the World Life Philosophies Living Deliberately No Comments

Sitting in my gilded cage, my chicks chattering discontent gave me peace. I held them close while I frowned at the bars surrounding me…

This was the beginning of a story I wrote for my eldest daughter a few years ago. I’ve seen others similar, describing the freedom someone attained through the efforts of a mentor or loved one. Like them, I wrote this story to thank my sweet girl. At only 14 years old, she started me on the path of becoming a writer. She found my efforts at my first story, which years later became an award-winning novel in my Mankind’s Redemption series.

Since that day of discovery and encouragement, she’s been my biggest fan and a source of strength amid disappointments. Not only am I inspired by the woman she has become, but I’m also thankful for the inspiration she’s given to my career.

There’s another person who made a major difference in my life more than thirty years ago. PE teachers often get overlooked in the academic system, but my elementary PE teacher took a special interest, helping me to make changes that influenced the rest of my life for the better. A friend of mine found her contact information, but every time I tried to write to her, I couldn’t seem to put my thank you into the right words. I hadn’t seen her since I was a child. Would she think me ridiculous? Writing this post has reminded me of the joy of saying, “Thank you,” regardless of the years.

If you have that special someone in your life—friend, relative, or mentor—I encourage you to take a moment and drop them a note. It can be a card, an email, or a story, but it will be worth it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an email to write. Live grateful and prosper.

Colette Black lives in Arizona with her amazing family, two dogs, and a mischievous cat. Current publications include the Mankind’s Redemption series, The Number Prophecy series, The Black Side anthology, and an appearance in One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology. More info at: www.coletteblack.net

Getting Noticed

June 1, 2015

Colette Black

Branding Business Colette Black Conventions Marketing Networking Professional Behavior Publishing Starting a Career No Comments

Ever feel like a needle in a haystack? Perhaps more accurate, a needle in a huge pile of other needles. We write, we publish, we go to conventions and yet somehow reaching readers seems to become more and more difficult. Perhaps they feel inundated by the “buy me” media, they have their favorite authors and have difficulty branching out, or they just plain don’t realize how much they need our books. What can we possibly do to even have a chance at the love and authorly acceptance we so desperately crave…along with a few more book sales, please?

Those questions are the Fictorians’ June focus. We want to help you know how to get your books, stories, poetry, or whatever your creative work, into the hands of the people who can love them best. As much as I’ve looked for the perfect formula online, in bookstores, and in my supposedly creative brain, this seems to be the subject that stumps me the most. From my conversations with other authors, I think I’m not alone.

Last month we talked about the writing tools. Great month, by the way. So, we have everything in line to create a great book. Are we only writing for ourselves? If not, then how do we get these great masterpieces noticed?

This month we’ll be talking about the usefulness, pros and cons, and possible outcomes of activities such as:

Book Launches
Social media
Selling at conventions
Community contacts
Working with film makers
Targeting Indie Readers
And more…

So, let’s combine our collective needles of knowledge and I know that we can help eachother get to the top of the stack, the sun glinting off the spectacular surfaces of our books and catching the eyes of our potential readers.

I’m looking forward to this one, and I hope you are, too.

The Magic of Jutoh

May 20, 2015

Colette Black

Colette Black The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

As I said about Scrivener in my previous post, Jutoh is also a software program that can make you cry with joy or frustration…probably both. In both cases, I had to spend a lot of time on Youtube, forums, and the help page in order to figure it out. Other than the fact that they’re both extremely useful, the similarities end there.

Jutoh is a program designed to take your already written book from word processor format to ebook format, and it does its job well, including links, artwork, font, drop-caps, etc. You can write within the program, but I wouldn’t generally suggest it. My only exception to that might be game design. When I put together my game module, The Hologames, for Sojourner Tales, I outlined the game elsewhere but because of the intra-document links required, it worked well to do the writing within Jutoh.

Though I don’t generally use the program to write, I’ve never seen a program that can compile ebooks better, especially if you want some professional touches. To the right, you’ll see an example of a book manuscript in progress. This is the way it will look in epub format. This is a rough version, and I’m not finished with it yet, but it should get the point across. I can use graphics in my title or with my title, drop caps are a cinch, I can customize page breaks, etc.

When I’m done assembling my chapters, copyright page, title, contents (all linked, of course), glossary, author page, etc. I hit the “Compile” button and it puts everything together in the format of my choice: epub, mobi, ODT for smashwords (yes, this is a little different), and a number of other formats. I find that running my book through Jutoh then sending it back to Word in odt even makes for a cleaner document to prepare for pdfs and paper publishing markets.

Loading a document to createspace or kobi can be a fairly easy process, but often there are mistakes that you won’t see until your readers point them out to you. After compiling, Jutoh has another handy button, “Check.” Though problems that don’t really exist might come up, it tells you that it’s not likely a real problem. And real problems always come up. Wouldn’t you rather deal with them before you send your book out to the world instead of finding something you need to fix months after readers’ annoyance.

Last, but certainly not least, is the “Launch” button. With the download of a couple of other free software programs, Jutoh allows you to view your finished document in mobi, epub, and other formats. I can’t tell you how many mistakes I’ve caught just by looking at my book as it will appear to readers. It may be aggravating to fix, but it’s nice to get that aggravation over and have the confidence of a well-done product when you launch.

Last year, I won the first-ever IndieRecon Live Total Package Book Award. I credit much of that success to Jutoh. I put in a well-written novel, and Jutoh helped me knock out a great looking format. The combination allowed me my blissful moment of fame.

How about you? What’s your favorite way to get your book out into the world?

Bio: Colette Black
Colette Black lives in the far outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona with her family, 2 dogs, a mischievous cat and the occasional unwanted scorpion. She loves learning new things, vacations, and the color purple. She writes New Adult and Young Adult sci-fi and fantasy novels with kick-butt characters, lots of action, and always a touch of romance.