K.A. Meng's Blog | Page 24 of 31

Guest Blogger: Leah Hamrick

K. A. Meng
Mar 8, 2017
2 min read

The final guest blogger for this week is Leak. Take over girl.

Hello, everyone! My name is Leah Hamrick, and I’m the author of Frost on my Pillow, numerous short stories of all genres...amongst other unpublished novels that I have yet to grace the world with. (He-he)

I live in Michigan with my husband, daughter, and plethora or turtles, fish, and a spoiled tree frog named Sticky.

I decided to start writing one day because I was bored… yes, I had nothing better to do than sit at the computer all day and tyw off of this nonsense that was spilling out of my little mind.

Well, I’m going to tell you about my novel, Frost on my Pillow, book one of the Fire Bringer series.

The story is about a girl named Lyla Hall, who lives an abusive life in her home, the Summer Solstice. Everyone in her little town is blessed with the ability to use Fire.

After she gets beat for the last time by her stupid step-dad, she makes a run for it, leaving her home, the only place she has ever known, behind.

She then finds herself in the real world, Toledo Ohio.

A young man named Rylan finds her, and takes her into his home for her safety.

When she starts school, she finds a book about her kind in her new school’s library, and she steals it. When she finally gets around to reading it, she discovers that her necklace holds the power to end the world if fallen into the wrong hands.

When she meets Ethan Killman, an Ice Bringer, things are going to change… forever.

Demons start harassing them, and they will stop at nothing to get the necklace and the power it holds.

When secrets from the ones she loves comes out, nothing will ever be the same again.

I know that is a bad description, but me trying to explain something? Yeah, right. You’d get a better explanation from a dog watching you throw away that cheese wrapper… I mean, I am so bad at descriptions that it’s a struggle for me to even get a blurb put together that even tells the reader half of what they will be reading…

Okay, I’ve taken up enough of your time… maybe you will join Lyla and Ethan in their adventures…?

Thank you♥

Click here to buy: http://getBook.at/FrostonmyPillow

....

Leah, I think you did a wonderful job describing your book. Until next time, Folks. -K.A.

#GuestBlogger

How to Create a Teaser Image for FREE

K. A. Meng
Feb 22, 2017
3 min read

Updated: May 5, 2020

As a newbie author I would love to shell out money to have my own marketing team. It would be a nice dream. Millions of people becoming hooked and buying my book. My novel being made into a movie or TV show. Not only can't I afford a marketing team, but it isn't realistic to have one just for me.

I decided to show you how I created my own teaser images for free instead. This won't be step by step. You can search google to find instructions on some of the things I talk about.

The first thing you need to decide is what do you want the teaser to say.

I recommend either a quote or a line from your book or a few lines from your book. You can also tell us what your book is about. I'm going to build my own right here for you to see. Mine will be a line from my book:

I turned on the lights to my dorm room. My whole world shattered. Karen Bakke’s bed was stripped clean. I threw open her closet doors and checked her dresser, but everything she owned was gone. (Superior Species Book 2: Finding Karen)

Now that I've decided my line, I need to be able to edit an image.

I recommend getting GIMP 2. It's a free photo editing software. It reminds me a lot of Adobe Photoshop. You can also search online for other free photo editing software or you can use paint. My computers has Windows so I'm not sure what will work for Apple.

Finding an image.

There are plenty of website with images out there for you to use and pay for. I've found a few websites which give use for free under complete Creative Commons CC0 license. You can do almost whatever you want with them. You can read about it more here. If you know anymore, drop me an email, and I'll add to this tutorial.

https://stocksnap.io/

https://www.pexels.com/ - each picture will say if it is part of the CC0

https://pixabay.com/ - each picture will say if it is part of the CC0 (This one you have to join.)

https://www.ukwebhostreview.com/free-stock-photo-sites - a website that has several places to go for free pictures and rates them. Check it out!

You don't necessarily need an image. You can use your book cover and paste it into a background. Play with the background behind the cover.

I searched for three images which might fit. Simple as that. Do the same for your teaser. Don't use naked images.

I think everyone can guess two of the words I used. World and Bed. I found a picture of Earth which I liked. I didn't use bed because that is more for romance.

Making your teaser.

You need to decide what size to use. Mine are 800 pixels by 800 pixels. You can also do a rectangle image. I wouldn't recommend anything with strange shapes.

Depending on what image you decide will depend on how the text is written. Mine has a lot of black in it so I can either lighten the image or add an accent. I did the later. To lighten it "opacity", you click on the image and change the percentage. I recommend you do this after you have your words written. You need to be able to read the words.

Play around with the photo editor until you figure out what you like. Create layers so you use them later for other teasers. You want to make sure your can read everything and it doesn't hurt your eyes.

This is mine:

The one thing bad about GIMP is you can't save the images as a jpg. I recommend copying an image with the name you want. Export the final image and save over it.

Have fun with it, and don't over think anything. If your books aren't selling make more teasers. I usually do four teasers and a few before the book comes out.

After the book is out I throw in the amazon logo for sales.

-K.A.

#WritingTips #Images

Guest Blogger: Geoff Nelder

K. A. Meng
Feb 19, 2017
5 min read

It's that time of the week again. I'm handing the reins of my blog over to another. Here you go Geoff Nelder.

Oops, there I go again, barging in on someone else’s blog, grasping for an unsuspecting new audience. No one is more demanding than Mrs N in more ways than two and this piece is inspired by one of her more painful questions.

Writers’ Delusions by Geoff Nelder

This is the question Mrs Nelder stabbed me with when she once peeped over my shoulder at my list of story rejections being three times longer than the acceptances.

“What on Earth made you think you could be a writer?”

Answer: I didn’t know I was okay at writing until a teacher made me stand in front of the class and stumble through an essay I’d scribbled. A silly tale about a red squirrel scrambling on the gnarled boughs of the village’s oldest oak tree, stealing an acorn from a tree spirit to bury under a pupil’s desk. Imagine my surprise when every kid sneaked a peep under their desk.

Yes, those words held power and I liked it. Through my teens I wrote jokes. Sold some to British comedians and my first was published in a magazine in 1969. At university I became a co-editor of the rag-mag, a dreadful collection of very funny, awful smutty and politically-incorrect gags. We’d gather in the bar and brainstorm until the beer ran out. That was nearly half a century ago and I still see those jokes. Uncredited, no royalties. It was for charities then, still is. During that time I studied geography, mathematics and literature. Struck dumb, me, when the lecturer read out loud William Langland’s Vision of a Fair Field full of Folk. This is a wondrous sample of that early medieval poem:

‘In a somer sesoun, whan softe was the sonne, I shope me into shroudes, as I a shep were, In abite as an heremite, unholy of werkes, Wente forth in the world wondres to here, And saw many selles and selcouthe thynges. Ac on a May mornyng on Malverne hulles Me biful for to slepe, for werynesse of walkyng;’

I learnt it by heart, while hiking on those actual Malvern Hills, a short bike ride from my house. I took my son on those hills a few years ago and the ‘sonne’ softly warmed our backs. I learnt the energy in words of sensual Show. Engaging the reader via all their five senses in every story. I read the great writers and they all do it. Even those science fiction and thriller books that the literati often overlook. Consider these two words from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle: ‘She gave him a perfumed hug.’ You know which two words. Did you experience that hug? You were there, right?

After graduating, twice, I taught high school where writing lies takes over. Not really, but all teachers have to write masses of words. We talk about a target of 2000 words a day on our novels but teachers often achieve that when writing lesson notes, worksheets and above all, end-of-term reports. Most teachers hate that but writerly ones love it. It gives us the opportunity to be creative with an otherwise tedious activity. (assuming the school isn’t using computerized multi-guess reporting). One of my favourites: ‘The dawn of legibility in John’s writing revealed his utter incapacity to spell.’ Such chores honed my writing decades ago.

Not that I’ve stopped learning the craft. I’m with Pablo Casals – the famous cellist on why he continued to practise at 90: ‘Because I think I’m making progress.’

I remain fascinated enough by gnarled oak trees and squirrels to write them into my stories. This 2017 year sees publication of my ‘Girl in a Wandering Wood’ in The Horror Zine. I’d overheard the phrase wandering wood and thought what if a wood actually wandered? So, a botanist is trapped in a copse, animated by a spirit trying to stop her escaping. A squirrel helps her out, kind of. The same squirrel I wrote about in 1957.

A sample flash story. First published in Bobbing Around: (2004)Vol 3 No.6 A newsletter by psychiatrist Dr Bob Rich.

Nothing Upstairs

By Geoff Nelder

He should take advantage of the perspective from the top floor of a bus. Forrister’s car lingered in Foley’s Vehicular Care Centre for its annual medical but he had to put in a work appearance.

Green vinyl seats as opposed to his red leather but not bad. His nose expected sour milk odours—a foolish bias, so his eyebrows arched with surprise as fresh air slapped his face from the open top windows. Even so, those reasons for individual travel, cocooned in his Ford, came to him—personal space, sublime solitude listening to opera. He sought the least offensive fellow traveller. The beard looked normal enough: its owner gazing through a demisted circle on the window as London glided past.

An uncomfortable moment passed as Forrister obliged the window-side occupant to move a corner of his coat and shuffle up. In his car, Forrister would by now have tuned in to Classic FM talking back, unheard, to the presenter, so he turned to his companion.

“Cold, today.”

No response. Could be his new friend had defective hearing but more likely incredulous anyone had the temerity to strike up a conversation. Twenty minutes before disembarking—he had to give it another shot.

“Hey, there’s Putney Cinema. Don’t go in Screen Three, it’s squeezed in between One and Two—you only hear the other two films and at the same time!”

“Grooten!”

“Pardon?”

“For—is that all?” Beard conversed all right but in gibberish and to the window. Suddenly, Forrister’s head received a blow from behind as a robust woman thrust her elbow over the seat.

She treated Forrister to a cloud of gardenia fragrance.

“Grooten?” She barked. Beard turned, looked at her and nodded.

What? He hadn’t appreciated the rapidity of language development since he last used public transport. Contorted out of recognition. Forrister couldn’t participate. The woman had slumped back into her seat and the beard brushed again at the condensation. Forrister had to try again.

“Full today then,” Forrister said, sketching a wave at the one empty seat.

Nothing.

Then: “Jaffa. Man…”

“I have an orange. Would you like a piece?”

Before the Beard could reply, the elbow dented Forrister’s head again.

“Grooten?” she asked. He shook. She re-slumped.

Dejected, Forrister re-bagged the orange, stood and weaved his way to the winding stairs, three stops early. Before the descent he glanced back.

The woman took Forrister’s seat. Beard took an ear-piece out of his left ear.

And shared the cricket.

About the Author

Geoff Nelder is a professional liar, badass editor, and fiction competition judge. He was awarded Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society for his research into air pollution and microclimates and used his students as unpaid researchers to discover urban heat islands in Yorkshire towns and villages. He taught now-out-of-date Geography and IT to the ungrateful alive but escaped on his bike to write.

His publications include science fiction novels Exit, Pursued by Bee and the ARIA trilogy; and thrillers: Escaping Reality, and Hot Air. Many of his short stories have found homes in mags such as The Horror Zine, Perihelion, Ether Books, Encounters, Jimston Journal, Delivered, Screaming Dreams and many anthologies such as Monk Punk, Science Fiction Writers’ Sampler (with Gregory Benford and David Brin), Twisted Tails, and Zombified.