Day 51: Ken D. Foster - Scammer?

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 51: Ken D. Foster - Scammer?

Most writers who are serious about their craft are constantly looking for ways to improve their writing, market their books, sell more copies, or how to find a publisher. When I noticed this ad, I have to admit, my interest was peaked.

How alignment and momentum is the key to your success to become a best seller author How knowing about the 7 essential laws Laws, especially the Law of Sufficiency and Abundance is key How mastering your energy is the foundation to building and maintaining your success How to visualize and feel your way into best-seller status How what you desire, desires you!

I signed up for a series of online sessions. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the first two sessions because of work. According to Ken Foster this was not a problem as the videos could be watched at any time.

Then yesterday I received an email from him that changed everything. The email read …

1. The most important thing to do before you write a single word!
2. How to write your book in 90 days or less
3. Should you self-publish or go with a traditional publisher?
4. 12 Stupid Mistakes made by Wannabe Authors

Right there and then I knew I was dealing with a phony. If there’s one thing that angers me it’s people telling other people they can write a book in 90 days or less. I emailed Ken Foster and shared my opinion with him.

One can write a short story or even a novella in 90 days or less, but a book … no. This is one of the reasons there is so much trash online. Anyone and everyone, even children, can write something, publish it and voila it’s available on Amazon and other sites. In the process, self-publishing has received a bad reputation.

As for Ken’s question to go with a traditional publisher or to self-publish, I told him that any writer worth his sold would prefer a mainstream publisher vs. self-publishing. After all, if a mainstream publisher accepts a manuscript, everything is taken care of by the publisher: editing, layout, cover design and marketing/selling the book. Not to mention that the author receives an advance and regular royalties.

Ken Foster responded that I had a lot to learn about the publishing industry. He stated that he had a friend who was accepted by a mainstream publisher and received a $300,000 advance.

I nearly burst out laughing. Having been in the publishing industry for years I know several best-selling authors and none of them have ever received a $300,000 advance. First time authors receive between $5,000 and $10,000 while the more established authors receive between $25,000 to $75,000 but none of them, absolutely none of them ever received more than a quarter of a million.

It would appear that Ken Foster doesn’t know much about the publishing industry either. He calls himself a best-selling author, but he’s nothing more than a self-published writer. It’s not because he’s written a few books, that he’s a best-selling author. By definition, a best-selling author is someone whose book was listed on the New York Times bestselling list. If not on that list, then anyone claiming to be a best-selling author is putting on airs and graces.

If any of you gets contacted by Ken Foster, be wary of him. He has a hidden agenda. 

Day 41: Book characters

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 41: Book characters

Aspiring actors are given the advice to avoid typecasting. Only being able to portray one type of character might lead to the audience quickly becoming bored with that actor. 

Aspiring authors would do well to follow the same advice. Writing about the same subject over and over again will make the story predictable. Some very talented authors can get away with it, weaving a completely different story while writing about their favorite subject.

Among others, Jilly Cooper can do this. Whether she writes about Rupert Campbell Black’s antics in 'Riders' or an emotionally abused grandma in 'Jump', somewhere along the line a horse is playing a part, but the stories are very different.

Author X (she shall remain nameless) is not such an author. Even though she is famous and has quite a few million in her bank account, all her books are more or less the same.

Author X’s books summarized:

The main character is filthy rich. He’s not just a millionaire, he’s a billionaire. While it can be nice to read about people with pots of money, it can also become rather annoying. Especially for those whose bank account lacks a couple of zeros.

Supporting characters work themselves into a stupor. Working 18 hours a day is part of the package in clawing their way to the top.

After work, they attend parties (only movers and shakers invited of course) where they drink copious amount of champagne and sniff a few lines of coke. I have no experience with coke-sniffing, but on the few occasions that I looked too deep into a glass, I had such a hangover the next day that I was in no condition to go to work. 

When the supporting characters come home from the party they have steamy sex for hours on end. This really makes me wonder. If they worked an 18-hour day and got wasted at a party, how do they manage to romp around until the wee hours of the morning? When do these people actually sleep?

Still on the subject of sexual escapades … the men are always ready for action and the women have multiple orgasms. I have a little trouble believing that too. I think it’s far more likely that a woman who’s been on her feet since the crack of dawn is far more likely to utter the words “Not tonight honey”.

While the men and women sleep their way around New York, Los Angeles, London, Sidney, and a few other cities, they don’t give a second thought to sexually transmitted diseases. They meet someone who can help them reach their goal and hup, they’re between the sheets. Whatever happened to women making it on their own? Isn’t it a little degrading that they still use sex as a means of advancement?

The men in author X’s stories invariably look like George Clooney. I can only sigh and shake my head at the comparison. I mean really, is there only one attractive man on earth? Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. I’ve seen Clooney in his early years in the TV series ‘E.R.’ and in movies such as ‘Up in the Air’ and ‘The Descendants’ and I see nothing special. He’s a good actor, but as far as looks are concerned he’s not my cup of tea.

The women in author X’s stories are always chic and glamorous. They wear designer clothing (of course, if you worked 18 hours a day in a power job you could afford designer labels too), their hair is always smooth and sleek no matter what the weather conditions are, and short of mascara and a bit of lip gloss they wear no makeup. They are blessed with natural beauty.

Darn, I wish I was blessed with natural beauty. When there’s moisture in the air my hair turns frizzy no matter what I do. 

As for makeup, I need the full nine yards. If I was to just use a bit of mascara and lip gloss I’d look like death warmed up.

While some people will undoubtedly enjoy a story about millionaires and their entourage, that doesn’t mean that author X has to be the sole provider of those stories. Can’t she write about something else? Can’t she come up with anything else than billionaire men and slutty women?

Day 37: One dimensional vs. three dimensional

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 37: One dimensional vs. three dimensional

A few weeks ago, I had an idea for a story. A supernatural story. It’s a stretch for me, as I’ve never written anything like it before, but every now and then one must think outside the box.

For twenty chapters everything went fine, the story practically wrote itself. But then I hit a snag ...

A fellow writer said that someone had read her manuscript and found that her characters were too one dimensional. That she should make them three dimensional.

This got me thinking ... were my characters one dimensional? If they were, what could I do to make them three dimensional?

I posted this question in a writers group on Facebook but only got one satisfactory answer. Nick B said:

Imagine one-dimensional to be a shopping list.

Imagine three-dimensional to be a restaurant review.

Okay, I understood that I had to describe my characters in more detail. The question now was, how much is too much?

Take Barbara Taylor Bradford for instance. She is a well known and respected author of 35 novels. The first book I ever read of her was ‘A Woman of Substance’ which I loved. Since then I read numerous of her other books but eventually stopped reading her. 

Her stories were too detailed for my taste. Every outfit one of her characters wore was described in detail, as was the scenery and the meals. It was just too much for me. I didn’t need to know what kind of dress Laura wore, what she carried in her handbag, and what she had for dinner.

The opposite can be said of Lisa Jewell and her book ‘Trust Me’. All her main character wore was sweatpants and a t-shirt, day after day after day. All she ate was pizza, and over the course of the story, she drank liters and liters of wine. I wonder how this woman got anything done because she was either drunk or suffering from a hangover.

This makes me wonder how I should describe the characters in my latest story. Should I describe what they wear? What their home looks like? What they think, how they react? How much does the reader want to know?

I considered having the story proofread, but this will be of little or no help. Some people like a detailed description while others might think ... okay, just get on with it.

Another thing that confuses me is ... show, don’t tell. I’m not showing a story, I’m telling a story, so what’s wrong with that? If readers want a story shown, they can buy a picture book. When I buy a book, I’m interested in how the author tells the story.

Yeah yeah I know, as a writer I need to describe the places, the people and their feelings and emotions. But once again, how much is too much?

Day 34: Book Review - Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 34: Book Review - Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan

I finished ‘Trust Me’ by Hank Phillippi Ryan and what a letdown. The synopsis sounded interesting:

'An accused killer insists she’s innocent of a heinous murder. A grieving journalist surfaces from the wreckage of her shattered life. Their unlikely alliance leads to a dangerous cat and mouse game that will leave you breathless.'

Breathless? It didn’t leave me breathless at all. In fact, I skimmed over quite a few pages to get to the end. When I got to the end, I thought ... that’s it, that’s all?

Right from the beginning, it bothered me that the main character displayed such hatred toward the woman who supposedly murdered her child. If she uttered her feeling once, twice or even three times, I could understand, but she keeps harping on about the same over and over and over again. It got on my nerves.

Meanwhile, she herself is guilty of murder. She caused an accident, killing her husband and daughter. It was ruled an accident, but still, she is guilty of taking two lives.

The story starts a year after the accident, but rather than moving on, she keeps talking to her dead husband and daughter. This bothered me too. They’re dead, they’re gone, get over it.

You might think such a statement heartless, but it so happened that many years ago I knew a woman who lost her son in a tragic accident.

Margot and her three girlfriends came back from a week-long holiday. As they arrived in their home town, they noticed a headline in the newspaper that four boys had been burned to death in a car. They were horrified.

But things got worse when Margot came home, she found out that those boys weren’t just any boys, one of them was her son.

A week after the funeral Margot was back at work. She couldn’t afford to grieve for a year, she stated that she came back to work to be among people and to keep busy. She obviously suffered and she was never the same again, but she tried, she didn’t dwell on the loss.

Another thing that bothered me in ‘Trust Me’ was the drinking habits of the two women. My goodness, they didn’t just drink, they gulped it down by the bottle. Whether it was morning, afternoon, evening or night, they constantly had a glass of wine in their hand.

As for eating, there was very little mention of that, short of ordering pizza (accompanied by a bottle or two of wine). I wonder if the Hank Phillippi Ryan gave any thought to the many recovering alcoholics reading her book.

And she’s not the only one. I have read countless other books where I couldn’t turn a page or the characters were drinking. With some it was wine, others beer, or in same cases gin and tonic. In one particular book, I actually counted these drinking habits of the main character and came to 37 bottles in 7 days.

In conclusion ... I give ‘Trust Me’ a big thumbs down. The synopsis is well written, but the book is a big disappointment.

Day 146: Scam Targeting Writers

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 146: Scam Targeting Writers

There’s a long list of things that tick me off and somewhere on that list, you would find … scammers, especially scammers who target writers.

One such scammer is Amy E. who one fine day decided to start flooding my inbox with messages such as: do you want to be a writer? Do you want to sell more books? Do you want to be a bestselling author?

I knew right away that I was dealing with a scammer as nobody can make you a bestselling author. To become a bestselling author, you have to write something, a literary agent has to accept it, a talented editor has to make the work better, a publisher has to publish it and a marketing team has to bring it to the attention of readers.

Now if Amy E. were a bestselling author or even an author for that matter, her offer of advice would carry some weight, but she’s a nobody.

If I were to get a chance to address Amy E. I would say … Do you know what Ernest Hemingway, James Patterson, and J.K. Rowling had in common? Each of them had an idea, sat down, opened a book, took a pen and started writing. 

At the time, Hemingway had no idea he would become one of the most respected authors of our time; Patterson didn’t have a clue that he would be listed in the Guinness World Record book with the most New York Times bestsellers; while Rowling would have been baffled if she had known that little Harry Potter would make her one of the richest people in England.

If those people were to offer advice to writers I would be the first to take a front-row seat, but Amy E. … who is Amy E. and why would I take writing advice from someone who isn’t published, who isn’t even a writer?

Her advice to writers to get their work noticed is:

·          Join local writer groups

·          Online critique groups

·          Facebook groups

·          RWA (if you’re a romance author)

·          Bloggers;

·          Websites dedicated to authors and their crafts.

Is this the best she can come up with? I typed in Google “How to get my writing noticed” and within seconds I received 209,000,000 results. My guess is that Amy did the same. She prowled Google, gathered information on how to write and get writing work noticed and then passes it off as her own advice. Shame on you Amy, while this is not exactly plagiarism, it’s highly unethical, especially if you’re charging for this advice.

For those who already have written something, Amy offers a review of their work. For a standard review, she charges $250, for a rush review $325. I have news for Amy … most writers are broke and can ill afford $25 for a review, let alone $250. Besides, have a look on Amazon, there are tons of reviews there all written by readers FOR FREE.

Some people just have no scruples. They’re looking for a way to make money and any means will do. A few might fall for her scam and end up disappointed, others – especially those who have been around the block a few times – will shake their head and think ‘Nice one Amy, but try again’, which no doubt she will. After all, if one scam doesn’t work, try another.

As for me, one good thing came out of Amy’s worthless babble … it got me out of my slump. Ever since Gabriel’s passing I hadn’t written one word. As you can see I’m out of that slump.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Day 113: In the Spotlight: Margot Finke

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompt

Day 113: In the Spotlight: Margot Finke

How did your journey as a writer begin?

In middle school, when a teacher praised my writing style. Later, life got in the way of serious writing—husbands and kids can do that. Yet I always fed my imagination with the plays and stories I wrote in my spare time.

What is your favorite and least favorite aspect of writing?

I love all aspects of writing, especially when the ideas come thick and fast.  Book promotion however can be a real drag — it takes time from writing, dammit!

Do you recall the book that made you aspire to become a writer?

Alice in Wonderland. I devoured that book.

What authors do you admire and why?

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns    “

The Sword of Demelza - Jeanne E. Rogers

Where is your favorite place to write?

When the kids went off to college, and I finally had the peace and time to write, we converted the family room into my writing den—a cosy space with sofa, chairs, a fireplace, windows onto the back gardens, and a humongous L shaped desk my husband set up for me. In winter, my tender outdoor plants luxuriate there under gro-luxe lighting. Mmmmm. . . indeed, a writing den where my inspiration can run riot!

Are you a pen and paper writer or a straight to the keyboard writer?

Keyboard all the way. Even I cannot read my own handwriting. I LOVE my computer!

As a reader, what catches your attention?

First it’s the voice of the writer—a first page that hooks my interest. Then the plot and the characters creep up on me, and I dive into the tale—an eager observer right in the middle of the angst and the action.

I also like to help others write tight and terrific MS.  Clients send me their MS so I can guide them into writing books their readers will love.  Very satisfying!!

When you write, what comes first, the plot or the characters?

This depends.  Sometimes one and sometimes the other. Ideally, both the plot and the main character are equally important.

What is your main goal when creating a story?

For me, books have always been a Magic Carpet Ride to fun, adventure, and a lifetime of learning. When an idea begs to be developed and written, I want it to take kids who read it on that same Magic Carpet Ride. My goal is to Hook Kids on Reading.

Does life ever imitate art or vice versa?

My “Down Under Calling,” the saga of a modern family divided by an ocean, features Grandma Rose, a feisty lady who is loveable as well as sneaky. The family stories she writes to her grandson in Oregon (that amaze him), come straight from the mouth of my dear departed Mom.  She was a wonderful storyteller, and every one of them is true. Mom would be so tickled to have them featured in a book of mine. Does this count?

The same happened with The Revenge of Thelma Hill--a ghost mystery set in Oregon.  As I wrote, the ghost’s character simply wrote itself. I wondered what was happening. Then I GOT IT!  I was channeling my mom again. And she was perfect for the scary, yet eventually friendly ghost who needed Frannie’s help to make her killer pay. So I thought, “I’ll go whole hog, and use Mom’s real name for the title. Thelma Hill was her maiden name. I also knew Mom would be thrilled to be a major character in a book I wrote –an ideal ghost.”

What inspired you to write Dreamtime Man? 

I grew up Down Under, and Dreamtime Man is a  rhyming picture book, inspired by the horrible things that happened to the Australian aboriginals after the white man colonized the country. Even though I have lived in the US for many years, my Aussie roots are deep. I was brought up to judge people by how they treated you, and not by the color of their skin, their religion, or their politics.

How do characters take shape and evolve in your mind?

Dreamtime Man is told in rhyme for older children and adults. It is based on history. I guess you could say that the main characters are the Spirits of Dreamtime and the Aboriginal Tribesmen. Both are inexplicably linked.  Both were battered and almost demolished by the invading hordes of white settlers, and later by terrible Government policies. Each side feared the other, and when fear rules violence reigns.

Is there an underlying message in your stories?

Absolutely. The  message is universal, yet today it is sadly not often realized:
*Earth is small, and we all need to get along together.
*Empathy and compassion are underused these days.
*Create tolerance and understanding instead of violence.
*Do not fear what is different. Different is often good.
*Let people prove their worth before you attack them.
*Use only what you need, and help your neighbors when they need it
*Don’t allow fear to create violence.

What pulled you to write your particular genre of writing?

It wasn’t a conscious choice.  I was a teacher’s aide, and I often told tales about Aussie animals to classes. It just happened, and I loved writing for children. Many of my books have Aussie Themes or about animals. They range from grade school picture books and stories, to mid-grade reading.

My latest books are:

**Daisy and Bartholomew Q   a MG – a fun fantasy adventure that promotes the use of powerful words and the Thesaurus.

** Oscar is Different a PB – looking or feeling different is not always a bad thing.

**Kobi Borrows a Pouch PB – a small koala discovers the Aussie bush can be a dangerous place.

Aside from writing, what are you passionate about?

My family—3 great grown kids, 4 wonderful grandkids and a husband who is a real treasure. Plus, the state of the US today, and how we should vote to fix it.

How has your background shaped you?

Growing up in Queensland, Australia, has imbued me with much of the Aussie independent spirit. I also love writing about its unique animals and way of life.

What is the one thing you would like to be remembered for?

“Here lies Margot Finke, off on her last Magic Carpet Ride to an uncharted land. Her wish is to hook kids on reading and have children of all ages read and reread all of her books.

If it were possible, what 3 things, other then your loved ones, would you take with you into the next life?

My computer, my thesaurus, and a copy of Alice in Wonderland

Describe yourself in 3 words?

Determined.  Organized. Imaginative.

What would your general day to day routine be?

Promote my books, write a little more, and work on critique client manuscripts. Read in my spare moments. Some garden time!  A possible Skype Classroom Visit.

Thank you so much Conny, for this opportunity to strut my stuff.

* Website:
http://www.margotfinke.com

** BOOK CATALOGUE:  Email for your copy:
 mfinke@frontier.com
For Discounts--Autographs + Cheaper Postage.
* ORDER DIRECT from Catalogue.

* Skype Classroom Visit Details:
http://virtualschoolvisits.blogspot.com/

* Amazon  +  Kindle : 
http://tinyurl.com/j26s6wu

My Pinterest Boards:  Help and Guidance Boards  for Teachers.
http://www.pinterest.com/margotfinke/