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The Stories of Scott D. Southard

  • In Jerry’s Corner
  • A Jane Austen Daydream
  • Permanent Spring Showers
  • Megan
  • Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare
  • The Dante 3
  • Me Stuff
  • Man Behind the Curtain
  • March 11, 2013

    My Adventure in Self-Publishing: Finding Inspiration in a Cover Artist

    Grim ReaperIn today’s overly-congested world of writers, you need something to stand out, something to capture the eye.

    As much as I would love to say it needs to be all in your story… well… that is not enough anymore. Because, frankly, readers might make a decision before even getting to the point that your characters can breath a faint hello.

    Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, author pages on amazon.com, etc., every little bit helps. But another part, a big part, has to be that the cover captures the eye. The cover needs to buy you a few seconds of consideration; enough to draw the eye to the description and then to your story.  This is true for traditionally published books, indie books, and self-published authors as well. Yes, it is one of the overarching and common struggles that they all share.

    Another way to understand what I am saying is that the market is senior prom. You remember senior prom, right? Well, at this prom you want to wear the powdered-blue suit from the 1970’s.

    Why?

    Because everyone will remember that you did… and they will remember it for years after. (more…)

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  • March 1, 2013

    My Adventure in Self-Publishing: Calling All Cover Artists!

    brush tipsWe’ve all heard the expression not to judge a book by its cover.

    IT’S BULL!

    We all do it!

    A cover is the first line of communication between an author and their audience. It’s the opening shot at a race. It is what convinces a reader to pick it up and read the description (or in today’s world, scroll down the page). Frankly, a cover can make or break a book on the market and we as writers have to care. We have to care a lot!

    Right now I have almost 15,000 twitter followers, most of them are my fellow writers, and each time I get the e-mail saying I have a new follower, I will usually visit their website quickly or check them out on amazon. And, I hate to admit this, a cover has been known to influence how I feel about their work before investigating further. See, if a work has a cover that is a generic one from a self-publisher or is obviously created out of stock footage on Photoshop (without any flair to it)… well… there ya go.

    I know how unfair this is!

    To sit down and write any work (and then have the guts to get it out into the harsh world of sales and reviews) a writer has to care some. No one simply falls into writing a book. Only Paul McCartney can wake up humming Yesterday; we authors are not that lucky. Yes, we may wake up with Yesterday (or with “Scrambled Eggs” as was the original title), but it takes months and months before our song is ready for a performance. (more…)

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  • February 22, 2013

    402 Followers Proud! Thank You.

    Enjoying the momentLast night, I passed the 400 mark in followers for my blog.

    Wow! Seriously, I am really overwhelmed by this. Writing is such a lonely business, so to know that there are people out there that not only enjoy your work, but also like it enough to subscribe. Well, that is just breathtaking.

    Thank you! Your support truly inspires me.

    Other than my 402 followers, I recently passed 40,000 views on my site and my Twitter followers just exceeded 14,000. So 4 seems to be the theme for the day for me.

    (Oh, and did you know you can now subscribe to my site for your kindle? I kid you not! You can learn more on amazon here.)

    The next month is truly going to be a big one for me as a writer.

    • A Jane Austen Daydream is set for publication by Madison Street Publishing in April. It is in editing right now and I can’t wait for you to read it. If you would like to learn more about the work, read an excerpt and see the new cover, please visit The Jane Austen Centre’s website here.
    • Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare is also in editing, where I am working with the editor, Rebecca T. Dickson (you can visit her site and learn more about her services here). It is going very well. I don’t know the timeframe on this yet, but I do hope to have the book out some time in the spring.
    • Permanent Spring Showers, my last novel, is still currently up on this site here if you want to read it. However, once Max and Jane have left home, I plan to begin editing the book and it will be taken down. My hope is to find a publisher for it.

    So, along with this blog, this is a busy writing time. Hopefully, I can keep generating material that brings you back.

    Thank you again for all of your support!

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  • February 1, 2013

    My Adventure in Self-Publishing: Taking the Plunge

    Swimming PoolI grew up with a swimming pool. My grandmother also had a cottage that was on a lake perfect for swimming. So you would think I’d be pretty used to water, maybe even brave around it, with amazing diving abilities and incredible endurance.

    Nah.

    When I get into water, it is like watching an old dainty woman with a hairnet covering her blue hair slowly easing her way in, inch by inch.

    Maybe it’s the shock of the change in body temperature, but it has never felt natural to me and because of it all of the mad skills I should have (surrounded by water my entire life) is lost on me. I do not flip when I have to jump in, I plummet.

    So in other words, I am not prone to plunging into anything. (more…)

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