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Reviewing Interviews

October 24, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I made it through the first week of my blog tour!! I’m getting to the hard part, though. I have several interviews coming up, and it’s challenging keep from making identical responses to identical questions. There really is only one story behind the writing of Daughter Am I — I wanted to use the true tales of the Syndicate an historian friend used to tell me, and I wanted to do a mythic journey, so I combined the two ideas into the book — but I don’t want to bore people bycontinually talking about that not so very interesting inception. So, I wait until very late at night when my defenses are down, and I write what ever comes to mind.

Yes, I know — I keep talking about how words don’t come easy to me, but that’s only when it comes to fiction. When it comes to late night stream of consciousness, well, the words do come. I just hope they are worth reading. I guess we’ll find out. My first interview is today with Shelagh Watkins. Click here to find it.

I must have used up all my words last night for the interview. I’ve been sitting here for the past ten minutes trying to think of something witty to say, or perhaps pithy, but my mind is a total blank. Not good. I have a live chat in a couple of hours on Reviewers Roundup to talk about blog tours, and I need at least a few words for that. Maybe I’ll go take a walk. See if I can find a few words among the fallen leaves.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: blog tour, interview, stream of consciousness writing, Visual Arts Junction. 4 Comments »

Haven’t a Clue about Cluculz

October 23, 2009 — Pat Bertram

My blog tour is really starting to heat up! Lots of activity, more than I’m used to, that’s for sure. To start out, I am a guest at the blog of my good friend Joylene Nowell Butler author of Dead Witness. We first met when she submitted a character interview to my Pat Bertram Introduces . . . blog. Usually I have to twist people’s arms to get them to send me an interview to post, but she voluntarily responded to a link I left on a discussion on Facebook — which impressed the heck out of me — and now here we are, a year later, virtually visiting in Cluculz.

Where is Cluculz? you might ask. Good question. It’s 67 km west of Prince George and 32 km east of Vanderhoof, in central BC, Canada. I had to Google it, which was fun since it fit right into the theme of my guest post — writing about places you have never been. So, come to Clucluz, listen to the loons, and don’t forget the mosquito repellent. Click here to find the guest post at Cluculz Lake.

As if that weren’t excitement enough, today is the debut of my writing column — ASK PAT. Way cool! Since it’s in an ezine, there’s no place to leave questions and comments, so I’ve set up a special blog post for that purpose. You can find it here: questions and comments for ASK PAT. If you have a question you’d like me to include, be sure to let me know. If you have an answer you’d like me to include, let me know that, too. I certainly don’t presume to have all the answers.

And there’s more excitement! (I’m trying to sound like an info-mercial.) Tomorrow I am a guest at Reviewers Roundup on Facebook. Glenda Bixler, you, and I will be having a live chat about blog tours, my books, writing in general. So if you are a member of facebook, please pop in to the discussion between 3:00pm and 5:00pm ET tomorrow. It should be a lively chat. What’s it called? What else: Blog Tour 2009.

Don’t forget, my books are available in all ebook formats at Smashwords. Even better, you can download the first 30% of each book free. And speaking of free downloads, stop by Second Wind Publishing for a free sampler or two. One sampler includes the first chapters of all Second Wind’s romances, the other sampler includes the first chapters of all Second Wind’s mystery, adventure, maitstream novels. The first chapter of A Spark of Heavenly, More Deaths Than One, and Daughter Am I are in the Mystery Sampler.

If you’d like to do a character interview for my Pat Bertram Introduces . . . blog, you can find the instructions here: Character Questionnaire.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: Ask Pat, blog tour, Cluculz Lake, Dead Witness, Glenda Bixler, Joylene Nowell Butler, Reviewers Roundup, virtual book tour. Leave a Comment »

Dialogue with Pat Bertram

October 22, 2009 — Pat Bertram

The Internet is such a wonderful place. Today, day five of my blog tour, I am in Florida with author Nancy J. Cohen talking about dialogue. Virtually speaking, that is. Physically, I am in Colorado, listening to leaves falling like rain. In Florida, it’s a sunny day at the beach. At least I hope it is. I sure would hate to get caught in a hurricane while I’m visiting!

Yesterday someone commented that a virtual book tour seemed like a lot of work and asked if I would do it again. My first inclination was to say, “No way!” It’s too much work for such seemingly meager results, yet I am meeting people out of my normal circle of connections, which is always a good thing. I am getting to talk about my books, which is fun. And it’s a challenge, not just setting up the book tour, writing the articles, and promoting the tour, but figuring out how to make the same basic comment a hundred times and yet make each time seem fresh and new. So, would I do it again? I don’t know. Ask me in six months when my next novel Light Bringer comes out. My goal (silly me!) is to be so well known by then that the book will just fly out of Amazon’s warehouse as soon as I announce its publication. It could happen. And oh, by the way, I just bought London bridge. 🙂

So, please join me in Florida to dialogue about dialogue at: Nancy J. Cohen’s Notes from Florida

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: book tour, dialogue, Mystery Sampler, Nancy J. Cohen, Second Wind Publishing, virtual book tour. 3 Comments »

Following the Quest in Daughter Am I

October 20, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Again I will be at Malcom’s Round Table discussing Daughter Am I, but this time we will be focusing on the quest angle. The hero’s path, the mythic journey, the quest — these are all different names for a particular form of story, though the format is so infinitely changeable, that unless you search for all the elements, you might not see the similarities in such diverse stories as Star Wars, Tin Cup, and Daughter Am I. All, however, follow the hero’s path.

This virtual book tour is, perhaps, a mythic journey in itself. I was called out of my ordinary world into the special world of blog touring by Malcolm R. Campbell (the herald) when he asked if I planned on doing a formal blog tour. My first inclination was to say no (refusal of the call) but then I decided it was worth a try — I want to do whatever I can to let people know about Daughter Am I. So here I am (crossing the first threshold). There is much ahead of me in this cyber quest — tests, meeting allies and enemies (enemies don’t have to be human — they can be missed deadlines, lack of energy, blank mind, all the various ways life has of thwarting us). This quest in itself will be a supreme ordeal — 70 blog posts in 35 days? Yikes! But I’m sure there will be plenty of other ordeals before I can reap my reward. At the end, I will share what I learned with you, and this too is part of the journey. The hero never keeps the magic elixir of change for himself, but shares it with those back in the ordinary world.

So, please keep me company while I embark on my quest — I can use all the allies I can get!

Our next stop is at Malcolm’s Round Table: Following the quest of ‘Daughter Am I.’ It will be painless, I promise.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: Daughter Am I, Malcolm R. Campbell, Malcolm's Round Table, mythic journey, quest, the hero's path, transformation of the hero. 5 Comments »

Blog Tour 2009

October 18, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Today is the first day of the Daughter Am I blog tour, and frankly, I’m a bit nervous. Although I always intended to post to my own blog every day, I’ve only managed to average three or four times a week, yet here I have committed myself to thirty-five days of guest blogging, together with at least a brief post here to keep everyone up-to-date on my touring activities. That is a total of 70 bloggeries in 35 days! Do you think I can do it? Of course I can — I will have to.

Today I am honored to be a guest at Make Mine Mystery. I’ll be talking about cultivating humor and how it can enhance even the most suspenseful or terrifying story. I hope you disagree, that way we can have a lively discussion! So please click on this link to visit: Make Mine Mystery and be sure to leave a comment.

You can find the almost complete Daughter Am I tour here: Blog Tour 2009. I should already have the topics picked, the articles written, the promotion finished, but as you can see, it is still a work in progress.

If you haven’t already participated in my DAUGHTER AM I HAS FINALLY BEEN PUBLISHED! LET’S PARTY!! party, then please come! I would enjoy your company. You might enjoy it, too. There are puzzles, games, and a giveaway for everyone.

Odd to think that I am doing something I never thought I’d do — post a blog with no redeeming value, just announcements. Can I say in my defense that I’ve been staying up till 2 or 3 a.m., first to put my party together, and then to work on my blog tour? No wonder I’m not writing.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: blog tour, cultivating humor, cyber party, Daughter Am I, Make Mine Mystery, Pat Bertram. 2 Comments »

DAUGHTER AM I HAS FINALLY BEEN PUBLISHED! LET’S PARTY!!

October 14, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I’m sitting here trying to come up with something witty or at least interesting to mark this momentous occasion of having one more of my novels released into the world, but all I can think of to say is, “Hallelujah! Let’s Party!” Please help yourself to some champagne. I promise it’s the best pretend champagne money can’t buy. The fun, however, is real.

For those of you who like action games, here is: Book Invasion.

For those of you who like more cerebral games, here is: Memory by the Book.

For those of you who like card games, here is: Daughter Am I Solitaire.

For those of you who like jigsaw puzzles, you will love these! Click on a cover to work a puzzle. They are in order of complexity from the easiest to the I-dare-you-to-solve-it.

And that’s not the end of the fun! There’s more!

Read the first chapter of Daughter Am I. Click here to find the chapter.

Giveaway! Download free samplers from Second Wind Publishing, which include the first chapters of all their published novels. The mystery sampler includes a chapter from Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Click here to find the free samplers. (If you have any problem, let me know and I will make sure you get the sampler of your choice.)

Read the first 30% of Daughter Am I free at Smashwords or buy in any ebook format, including Kindle. Click here to find Smashwords.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Posted in blogging, books, fiction, internet, writing. Tags: Book Invasion, cyber party, Daughter Am I, Games, jigsaw puzzle, Memory by the Book, online book launch party, Second Wind Publishing, solitaire. 119 Comments »

Your Cyber Sins Follow You Everywhere

October 11, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Daughter Am I is going to be published in just a few days, and Amazon is in the process of getting it up on their site. There’s no cover image yet, no blurb, no “look inside”. Nor does the book show up on my Amazon author page. Imagine my surprise then, when I checked the Daughter Am I page and found two editorial reviews. What????

Two years ago I entered the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition and ended up as a semi-finalist. The “prizes” for having reached the new level were reviews by Publisher’s Weekly and two top Amazon reviewers. I only received one Amazon review, and it said simply: Mary didn’t know she had Grandparents till the lawyer called to tell her that she’d inherited everything from them. Turns out, the pair were murdered together. Her father won’t talk about his parents and the more she digs, the more she wants to find out what happened to her mysterious family. That “review” is simply a rewording of the description I wrote for my submission, and to be honest, mine was better!

The PW review said: A group of spunky octogenarians joins a woman on a search to discover the truth about the grandparents she never knew she had. After inheriting the farm of her estranged, murdered grandparents, Mary Louise Stuart discovers photos and an address book in the Colorado farmhouse and becomes obsessed with finding out who her grandparents were and who would want them dead. With each question, another senior citizen joins the quest – former friends and gangsters with names like Crunchy, Iron Sam, Happy, Lila Lorraine. The mystery deepens with each stop in their whirlwind tour of the Midwest: who’s following them? A love interest ensues between Mary and Tim Olsen, whose grandpa was good friends with her great-grandfather. While the author certainly researched the history of the Mafia, too many of the numerous historical asides – and subplots – are tacked on under the guise of story time, making the story drag with detail abut Wyatt Earp, the JFK assassination and bootleggers. But underneath the relentless bouts of story time is a delightful treasure-hunting tale of finding one’s self in a most unlikely way.

It’s not a bad review, all things considered, but the book that is now being published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC has been rewritten, edited, tightened up, and is much better than the version I entered in the contest.

That’s not the point, though. The point is that the reviews have been lurking in cyberspace all this time, and now they have found me again. Makes me what other of my youthful peccadilloes (writely speaking) will come back to haunt me.

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Posted in books, fiction, internet, life, writing. Tags: ABNA, Amazon, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, bootleggers, Daughter Am I, JFK assassination, Publishers Weekly review, Second Wind Publishing, treasure-hunting tale, Wyatt Earp. 13 Comments »

Help! I Need Topics for My Blog Tour!!

October 9, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I decided to do a virtual book tour for Daughter Am I, and now I have about four weeks of guesting on blogs, which means lots and lots of articles to write in a very short time.

I did not intend to commit to such a long tour, but the first blogger who agreed to be a host chose November 12 and the second chose October 18, so I’ve been trying to connect the dates to make one tour instead of two. I will need approximately thirty different blog articles or activities to make sure that each stop is different. (Actually, I will need sixty, since I will also have to post something on my own blog each day.) A few bloggers are going to send me interview questions. One wants me to send photos of my work space. Another wants an article about the challenges of writing with a focus on research. And yet another wants an article about writing dialogue for a group. The remaining twenty or so are trusting me to come up with something interesting. So — what would be some interesting topics? You can suggest a general topic about writing or you can take this opportunity to ask whatever you’d like about me, about my books, and especially about Daughter Am I. Either I’ll combine the questions into an interview or, if the response is long enough, I’ll use it as a stand-alone post.

Sheila Deeth, who will be my host on November 9, said, I’ve never hosted before, and I’m nothing like as experienced at blogging as you, so I’m reluctant to suggest a topic. I know what I’d really like to read would be how you got from where you were before to where you are now, and what advice you would give those of us dreaming of following.

Now that’s a good topic. It’s personal, and it’s something she wants to know the answer to. And it’s something I would never have thought of since I know the answer. Sort of.

So, what do you want to know?

Also, if you’d like to be part of my blog tour, please leave your blog address in a comment. I still have a few scattered dates to fill, so don’t be shy. (Yes, I mean you.)

Daughter Am I is a young woman/old gangsters coming of age tale that is being sold as mainstream, though it could just as easily be classified as a mystery.

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents –grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born — she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians –former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love Tim Olson, whose grandfather shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim need to stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret.

Daughter Am I, my young woman/old gangsters coming of age adventure, will be available from Second Wind Publishing in one week!

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Posted in blogging, books, fiction, internet, writing. Tags: blog topic, blog tour, coming of age novel, Daughter Am I, virtual book tour. 8 Comments »

I Had an Epiphany Today!

October 5, 2009 — Pat Bertram

For the past six to eight months, I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell books online. I’ve been roaming the internet, experimenting with various social networking sites, but everywhere I went I ended up in a writers’ community. Not that it’s a problem — I’ve met many fine authors, found some good books, learned much about writing. Still, I want my novels to find a readership, so I roamed further afield, signed up for some author/reader sites. And guess what — there I found those same authors. Finally I decided to spend my time on Goodreads and other book sites and have found mostly . . . yep. Authors.

I’m exaggerating here. Of course I’ve met readers, voracious readers. The problem many readers are struggling with is that they already have stacks of books to read, or they read constantly and can’t afford to buy all the books they want to read so they haunt libraries and used bookstores, or else they set up books blogs and do reviews and get so many free books they don’t need to buy any. Readers also tend to stick with a single genre and the authors they’ve already read. Many, of course, are adventuresome, and will try new books by new authors, but these readers are so overwhelmed by the incredible number of books available, that the chances of them finding your book are zero to zilch.

So, what do we poor authors do? Ah, here’s where I had my epiphany. Promote to non-readers! Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Think about it though. We all talk about there being so few readers in the world, yet DB has sold zillions of books. Who is he selling the books to? It has to be people who seldom read. Somehow, someone convinced those non-readers that they had to read his books, and they rushed out to buy the novels.

How does one reach these non-reading readers? If I knew that, my name would be as well known as Dan Brown’s.

Daughter Am I, my young woman/old gangsters coming of age adventure, will be available from Second Wind Publishing in two weeks!

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, life, writing. Tags: book promotion, Dan Brown, Facebook, Goodreads, non-readers, readers. 11 Comments »

Where Is Everyone?

October 1, 2009 — Pat Bertram

It seems odd that a community of mega millions can suddenly go quiet, but today the internet world seems deserted. There were few comments on blogs I, little going on at Facebook, even less going on at my live chat on Gather. (If you feel up to it, stop by to visit. We can use the company! We meet every Thursday night at 9:00 pm ET at the featured article at my discussion group: No Whine, Just Champagne. Tonight is our 84th discussion, and though we usually talk about a specific topic, lately we’ve just been gossiping about writing. Tonight we will be meeting here: No Whine, Just Champagne Discussion #84.)

Where do people go on the first day of the month that is more enticing than the internet? I know there are windstorms across the USA that might preclude the use of computers, but still, out of a community of millions, there should be something going on! Or perhaps the party moved, and I missed it. So, where is everyone?

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