2 + 2 = 4 Anniversaries to Celebrate in September

 M.A. Lee has four books that celebrate an anniversary this month, three born in 2019 and one born last year.

On the Second of September: The Hazard of Secrets

This is one of those books that kept expanding. The word count was intended to be around 70,000; the final book topped out at nearly 109,000 words.

 

Two hearts with dangerous pasts ~ Can they keep their secrets, or will murder force them to reveal all?

Clarey Parton crosses the Atlantic to steal an inheritance. She hopes that no one discovers the rightful heir lies in a cold grave.

Jem Baxter returns to the England he fled three years before. He assumes the name James Axminster to conceal his past, one littered with misdeeds.

When a press gang sees two people traveling alone, they seize the opportunity for quick cash: they plan to sell Clarey to a brothel and impress Jem on a merchant ship. Fate brings these two lonely souls together. Chance helps them escape.

Yet escape traps them in another secret—one with murder as a bloody solution.

The Hazard of Secrets offers twists and turns as tight as knots. Can Clarey and Jem keep their secrets, or will murder force them to reveal all?

Fetch it here: https://books2read.com/u/4DWRJr

 On the 10th of September, A Trio of Hazards.

Three novels bundled together, published one year ago in our plague year.

Above, The Hazard of Secrets.

View the trailer at this link: https://youtu.be/I1hb4d9wCOg

 

Next comes The Hazard for Spies.

Can Conrad discover the identity of the French spy mastermind? Will Phinney’s single-minded pursuit lead her into the murderer’s snare? Will three children be caught and sold into London’s underworld?

Will Conrad and Phinney discover the connection between past and present murders?

Or will two bullets allow the murderer and the French master spy to continue their work against the British government?

This book did exactly what it was supposed to do: story, length, everything. It concludes the spy narrative in the Hearts in Hazard trilogy, which also includes

A Game of Secrets

A Game of Spies

A Game of Hearts

The Danger for Spies

The Key for Spies

The three children introduced in The Hazard of Secrets above are secondary characters in this novel.

Hector Evans, first introduced in The Danger to Hearts  and receiving his own story in The Key to Secrets, also makes an appearance in The Hazard of Secrets and The Hazard for Spies.

Last is The Hazard with Hearts.

In the gothic tradition of Victoria Holt and Dorothy Eden, The Hazard with Hearts offers a determined heroine who confronts doubts, superstition, and the dark passions of a killer who wants every countess of Sheldrake dead and buried.

Vivienne Northrup agreed to a marriage of convenience to reap the benefits of becoming the Countess of Sheldrake. While she explores the ruins of Sheldrake Castle, a falling stone dislodged from a tower nearly kills her.

Only then does Vivienne discover that the earl’s previous two wives died tragically. The first had jumped to her death from that very tower.

Or had the woman been pushed? The way the stone nearly killed Vivienne?

I loved this book. At first I struggled with the heroine ... until I changed her name. Then she came alive! When I finished this novel and knew I was finished with the Hearts in Hazard series, I was saddened. The characters became part of my family, and moving on from the series was like moving far away from family. I know that I will want to return.

A Trio of Hazards can be purchased at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HVZWVX1

Individual novels are available in ebook and paperback. The bundles are only available on Amazon and in ebook format--although the bundles are a bargain!

The other two books for September are nonfiction guidebooks for writers.

On September 22, Discovering Characters.

Our job as writers is to find every detail of our characters then use snippets so our readers will our characters as they drive through our books. We hint at the foundations while opening doors to their plans and purposes.

Discovering Characters is designed to help writers find the exteriors and interiors, public and private. We’ll dig around the foundations and climb to the roof. We’ll explore the open rooms and the storage closets. We’ll peek into rooms inhabited by such characters as diverse as Elizabeth and Darcy, the Iron Man, Aragorn and Frodo, Travis McGee, Medea, Macbeth, and Nanny McPhee.

Five areas comprise this guidebook. Just as characters—and houses—are individual, this info is individual. You won’t need every bit. Dip in and out, skim around. When you reach locked rooms, come back and explore to discover the keys to your characters.

1. Starting Points ~ offering templates and character interviews
2. Classifications ~ common and uncommon ways of discovering characters
3. Relationships ~ couples, teams, allies, enemies, mentors, etc.
4. Special Touches ~ progressions, transgressions, and transitions for character arcs
5. Significant Lists ~ archetypal characters and much more

Discovering Characters, with 44,000-plus words, is the second book in the Discovering set, part of the Think like a Pro Writer series for writers new to the game as well as those wanting to up their game.

Fetch it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

Finally this month, on the very last day, we have the anniversary for Discovering Your Author Brand.

Discovering Your Author Brand understands that the browsing readers will only give a few nanoseconds to our books.

So, we explain the three main glances that hook the readers before they swim down the river. We also look at the keys to unlock those glances. With the right keys, the brand is revealed, and the door to the reader opens.

To help with the keys and glances, we have worksheets (charts!) to help you discover the brand for book, series, and your author persona—because the first leads to the last.

In addition to analyzing successful brands by writing greats from the last of the 20th century, we have information on how to develop a video book trailer. You can watch our own trailer for our book on Branding at this link: https://youtu.be/uthI5gEWic8

Fetch this guidebook at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL8GBM1

Coming later this Fall

We have the paperback version of Discovering Your Writing, which combines our books on Plot, Characters, Branding, and Sentence Craft, a real deal!

TAFN!

 

The Write Focus Podcast

 The Write Focus is bookcasting ...

... with Think like a Pro: New Advent for Writers, the first nonfiction writing guidebook we published.

The first episodes talked about newbie writer mistakes and "notta mistakes and the 6 stages of writing. For Halloween, we had the Writing Horror Stories.

November saw a venture into the writing tool of names: business names, pen names, character names, titles and series names.

December opened with Think/Pro: a mindset transformation, deadlines, and daily writing.

Podcasting occurs on Podbean. Go here for more information.

Book Birthday!

 This month marks the first birthday for Discovering Your Plot, published at the end of December on the 29th, 2019.

DiscPlot explores every well-known plot structure, all the way back to Aristotle.

We delve into detailed information for the best plot structure ever!

By the end of DiscPlot, writers will have the tools to construct a story as well as diagnose problems with pacing, tension and suspense, and sequencing events.

Discover Discovering Your Plot here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0838PTN49/

Discovering Your Plot is Book 6 in the Think like a Pro Writer series.

Bk 1: Think like a Pro, 7 lessons to convert a hobby writer into a professional writer.

Bk 2: Think/Pro, a planner for Writers, with opportunities for project management and word count tracking.

Bk. 3: Old Geeky Greeks, writing techniques developed in ancient times and still used today (just with fancy new names).

Bk. 4: Discovering Your Novel. Don't know where to start when writing your novel. DiscNovel will take you from start to finish in one year.

Bk 5: Discovering Characters. Everything you need to know about developing characters.

Bk 6: DiscPlot (above)

Bk7: Discovering Your Author Brand, how to develop your personal brand as well as branding of books and series, with the bonus of developing video trailers.

Bk 8: Discovering Sentence Craft. Polish your words and sentences with literary and rhetorical devices. Everything from figurative & interpretive concepts and structures for inversion, repetition, opposition, and sequencing.

Bk 9: Discovering Your Writing, with books 5, 6, 7 & 8 bundled together.

Find them all on my Amazon author page.

Celebrate *Discovering Your Author Brand*

 Now, a brand isn't burned into your flesh, but it is burned into your reader's minds.

Bring readers to your books, to your series, and to every thing connected to your author name through Branding.

Discovering Your Author Brand will help you start branding.

Here's the book description:

Here’s something not sexy. A brand for writing is a contract with the reader.

Here’s two more. Brands identify quality work with artistic effort. They serve as a stamp of approval for the customer.

Yeah, yeah. You’ve heard that before.

Look around, and you’ll spot lots of flash-bang presentations on creating author brands. As more writers become self-published and traditional writers try to increase their marketing, the Author Brand is a hot topic.

Everyone talks about it. Few people can explain how to do it or give instructions to follow.

Well, gee, here’s another book, too. How is Discovering Your Author Brand different from the other books in the marketplace?

1^st ~ It’s packed with examples based on highly successful writers.

Face it, in today’s marketplace, our competition is our peers and every other writer who has come before us. Agatha Christie is still selling. Ray Bradbury is selling. Arthur Conan Doyle sells. Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot was made into a Will Smith movie over two decades after Asimov died.

These writers aren’t on the best-seller lists; only new books earn places on those lists. But Christie and Bradbury and Doyle and many, many more writers are competition for everyone else entering the marketplace. And they have the cachet of quality that new and recent writers struggle to achieve.

So, we’ll look at successful brands and analyze the secrets of their success.

2^nd ~ Discovering Your Author Brand understands that the browsing readers will only give a few nanoseconds to our books.

So, we explain the three main glances that hook the readers before they swim down the river. We also look at the keys to unlock those glances. With the right keys, the brand is revealed, and the door to the reader opens.

To help with the keys and glances, we have worksheets (charts!) to help you discover the brand for book, series, and your author persona—because the first leads to the last.

3^rd ~ We have something the other books don’t have, another way to catch the attention of that swimming reader. Video trailers!

Advertising claims that consumers have to see something seven times—7!—before they’ll buy. Static ads and promo posts are all well and good, but we writers need an extra oomph to get that seventh look. Enter the video trailer.

Have you ever wanted to set up a video trailer or a brief clip, currently big on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram? Have you hesitated because you don’t know where to start?

We have an easily adaptable script as well as guidance on settling the debate between music and narration. (We pick music!)

Discovering Your Author Brand is packed with explanations and examples. Book 7 in the Discovering set, the manual is designed for new writers on the journey to becoming totally professional.

Writer M.A. Lee has been self-publishing fiction and non-fiction since 2015. She has over 25 books published under her pseudonyms. Visit www.writersinkbooks.com or her Amazon author page to discover more information.

Celebrate *Discovering Characters*

 Want to write a novel? You need to understand characters.

Discovering Characters is a comprehensive guidebook.  Check it out here:  take advantage of the summer promotional pricing, slowly winding down.

Celebrate a Book Birthday!

On this day in 2017, Old Geeky Greeks published to a few page-flickering fanfares.

With the clunky subtitle of Write Stories using Ancient Techniques, it was bound to take off. Not.

As part of the changes in my nonfiction books for writers, at the end of last year, Deranged Doctor Design created a wonderful new cover while I proofed (again) and re-formatted the original manuscript.  Here's the result, located on Amazon as well as many other online ebook distributors like Kobo and Apple and others.

Here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082T3YVMK

View *The Hazard for Spies*