by Scott W Clemens | Mar 18, 2017 | Author's Blog
Evelyn Marsh launched this week. In preparation for Kindle Press’s 2nd anniversary sale, they’ve revamped my cover. The old cover, on the left, had a noir feel to it, due to the old house, font etc., but it didn’t tell the reader much about the content. The new cover has a more modern feel, though still in the noir tradition, and the house, the pool and the stiletto heels don’t reflect the descriptions in the book, but it does clue the reader into the genre, and Kindle Press feels the new cover will spur sales. Your comments?
by Scott W Clemens | Nov 28, 2016 | Author's Blog
Evelyn Marsh is a Kindle Scout winner! As a Kindle Scout selection, Kindle Press has acquired the ebook and audible rights and will promote the book on Amazon.com. It’s currently undergoing editorial review and should be available around March, 2017.
by Scott W Clemens | Oct 27, 2016 | Author's Blog
In June I wrote a blog entry regarding Evelyn Marsh.Let me tell you a little about Evelyn. The concept arose a couple of years ago when my wife and I were vacationing in Santa Barbara. I was getting toward the end of writing Time Management: a novel. I said I’d kind of like to write a mystery, but I’ve neither been a policeman nor a private detective. I’d have to take a different tack. Furthermore, I wanted to show how thin the veneer of civilization is when your loved ones are threatened. What would turn a mild-mannered woman of privileged means into a cold-blooded murderer? I suspect we all have the capacity to commit murder, given the right circumstances.
I put the idea of Evelyn on the back burner as I finished and worked on marketing Time Management. With Artistic License, and Time Management, each took more than three years to write (many more, if you count false starts), and were both around 130,000 words (370 – 400 pages, depending on the font, etc.). That’s a long time to live with the same characters and story. I thought it would be a fun exercise to attempt a novella instead, to see if I was capable of writing at a faster pace. I planned to write 51,000 words, which, at 300 words per page, works out to 170 pages. I began planning on February 1st, 2016, started writing on April 1st, and was finished on September 1st. It came in at 51,161 words, right on target. So as an exercise it was entirely successful.
It’s probably not a good business model to write in different genres, because your readers may not follow where you choose to lead. With Artistic License is my take on a Romantic Comedy, which may or may not appeal to fans of Time Management, a time travel fantasy. Evelyn Marsh is, I suppose, a psychological thriller. A blurb for Evelyn Marsh might read something like this: “Everyone agreed Evelyn wouldn’t hurt a fly, but they didn’t count on a mother’s ferocity, nor the fury of a woman scorned.”
Written in the spirit of Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train; The Talented Mr. Ripley), Evelyn Marsh begins with the provocative statement that “Evelyn’s first murder was an accident.” It’s only a mystery in the sense that the rest of the book exists to explain the implication embedded in the first line. It’s a why-done-it and how-done-it, instead of a who-done-it. I don’t know if it will appeal to fans of With Artistic License, or Time Management, but Evelyn demanded I write her story, and I couldn’t very well refuse.
I really enjoyed my time with her. I had an outline to point me in the general direction, but most days Evelyn presented a nice surprise I hadn’t counted on. I feel privileged to be allowed to tell her story. I hope you enjoy your time with her as well.
I decided to submit Evelyn Marsh to the Kindle Scout program (www.kindlescout.com), where authors have ONE MONTH to present excerpts of unpublished works, and readers vote on which books they’d like to see published. The advantage of the program for authors is that books that are selected receive promotion on Amazon.com, which means thousands of readers. My campaign runs through October 17th. I hope you’ll pay it a visit and register your vote. In any case, whether selected by Kindle Scout or not, the ebook version of Evelyn Marsh should be published around December 1st.
by Scott W Clemens | Jun 29, 2016 | Author's Blog
Three weeks after the ebook publication of Time Management, I prepared the manuscript for print. The electronic version scales itself automatically depending on whether you’re reading it on a computer, a tablet, or a phone. The print version, on the other hand, is set in stone. The chapter headings begin about a third of the way down the page, which serves a couple of purposes. First, it simply looks less crowded. More importantly, it allows for minor adjustments, so you don’t end up with a chapter ending with just a line or two on the last page.
In addition, the font makes a big difference in the appearance of the text. For instance, the font in this blog is “sans serif” (without serif), which is a little cleaner and simpler to read electronically, but I prefer a serif font in print. What’s the difference?
Unfortunately, this website is preformatted and I can't show you the nuances, but this particular paragraph is presented in a seriffed font (albeit not one that I like).
I played around with a number of different fonts. The classic is Times New Roman. I used a variation on that called Caslon. Another form of spacing is called leading, which is the space between the lines. As you can imagine, the space between the lines has a great effect on the number of pages in the printed book. One version was 327 pages, but I found the type looked a little cramped. In the end I decided to use Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (a highly recommended novel) as a template for both font and leading, making the book 370 pages, which is much more pleasing to my eye, though the 43 extra pages did bump the cost of production up a dollar fifty.
Reviewing the novel for print, I found one more typo, which astounds me, as this book has been read by several editors and a couple dozen people from my Advance Team. I also added one phrase on the last page for clarification, which I subsequently changed in the ebook version as well.
Lastly, for both the ebook and print versions I opted for the Goodfellow font for the title, which was also used for a first edition of Samuel Langhorn Clemens’s The Innocents Abroad, first published in 1867 and playing a minor role in this story.
by Scott W Clemens | Jun 24, 2016 | Author's Blog
I’m currently working on a novelette (I’m hoping to bring it in at less than 200 pages) called Evelyn Marsh, in the spirit of Patricia Highsmith. It’s only a mystery in the sense that the rest of the book exists to explain the implication embedded in the first line: “Evelyn’s first murder was an accident.”
Evelyn Marsh is a character study. I don’t know if it will appeal to readers of my other books, but I’m enjoying my time with Evelyn. She’s an interesting lady. She’s a mild mannered artist, mother and wife. Some think she’s too timid. But don’t underestimate her. As the author, I might say I’m just getting to know her and what makes her tick. You’ll meet her for yourself next fall, if not sooner.
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