Grand Canyon Authors Club discussion

Just checking in, hope everyone is doing well.

I'm hanging in there, just hanging around the house. Not getting much writing done, though...

I signed up for a free writing course on, coursera.com
It's a learn to write your first novel course. Since I haven't had any formal training towards writing, I thought it would be a great tool for me. Hopefully it helps improve my next novel or influence my writing ability positively. I'm going to do a spin on the Arthurian legend.

Bravo! I looked at the synopsis, and it required more commitment than I can do right now. But it looks like if you can get your words in every week, you'll have something good at the end. Keep on typing.

Well, its good that you didn't sign up so far. To me, this feels like a 90% drop out rate. In the very least, i'm hoping 1 or 2 stay around to form a long term peer group where we can share ideas etc.

Good plan. Connecting with other writers is always good.

Bragging a little, now. I''m happy to report that my story "All the Way Home" is included in the May 31, 2020 issue of ELECTRIC SPEC e-zine. I can recommend this market, noting that they want more Ray Bradbury haunting voice, rather than pure horror. That works pretty well with my style. They paid $20, provided some editing, and did not hit me up for a donation. That makes them OK in my book.

Alright! Fantastic news! Congratulations!

George Martin said this covid-19 has brought him ample time to sit down and write in his cottage. I'm just checking in but I hope everyone else is feeling as accomplished! Keep writing!

If anyone just needs to get out for a weekend I'd like to share a suggestion with you. There are some fantastic state parks along the Colorado River that will allow you to get away. Check out Cattail cove, buckskin state park and Havasu state park. It was hot however in the water was really nice and cool. Great swimming, fishing and watercraft riding. The parks were really well maintained. Okay, stay safe and keep writing!

Thanks, that's good to know. Also, you can check out the night sky for Comet Neowise, visible near the Big Dipper through July 23rd.

Just checking in with everyone. What are you guys up to?

Just released all 4 books in my new SF Series The Blacksword Regiment: https://www.jldoty.com/books/blackswo...

Congratulations! The covers look great. With all the social distancing going on, what approaches are you looking at with marketing? I'm wondering if anyone has created a youtube author promotions page or something like that.

Congratulations, J.L.! I just got back from New Zealand - virtually, of course. I've always wanted to attend a WorldCon, but like ComicCon, the crowds are too much for me. There was partying going on in Discord, but I mainly attended Zoom panels and added substantially to my new-to-me authors and TBR list. They left the recorded panels up for a week, so I saw all the ones I had missed and got a lot of bang for my registration fee.
I did use my author name and public email, and must have attracted some attention, since I received another writer-get-rich scam email. It's so blatant it's funny, and I'll add it under that topic.

Hi Andres (and everyone)! There hasn't been a lot of public-facing author activity on my part in 2020, but I have been working with a designer to revamp my website, and the new version should be live in a few weeks. I'm also tentatively planning on releasing a short fiction collection (self-pubbed ebook only) sometime before the year is out. It's a little weird for me to not plan the second half of my year around Tucson Comic-Con or TusCon, but I guess the variety is nice?

Andres wrote: "Congratulations! The covers look great. With all the social distancing going on, what approaches are you looking at with marketing? I'm wondering if anyone has created a youtube author promotions p..."

I'm doing some serious Amazon advertising. It's not that expensive but it takes some work. I highly recommend everyone check out Bryan Cohen's Amazon Ad Challenge. It's free, and you'll learn a lot.

KJ, it is going to be sad to miss out on TusCon.

J.L. wrote: "I highly recommend everyone check out Bryan Cohen's Amazon Ad Challenge. It's free, and you'll learn a lot. "

Thanks for the info Jim. I'll check it out after work!

KJ, when your site is ready post a link. I'd love to check it out =D

Me too.

I just finished my writing course. I'm sending out a few copies for beta reads and trying to get a cover illustrated.
I hope everyone is staying happy and healthy, I look forward to hearing from everyone soon.

Hopefully we have a book festival next year.

Congratulations on completing the course!

Thank you. Congratulations to Cricket, I saw her new book debut!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Andres wrote: "Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!"

Thanks, Andres. Enjoy the spirit of the season!

I hope to see you all next year. Happy New Year to everyone!

Andres wrote: "KJ, when your site is ready post a link. I'd love to check it out =D"

Goodness. This really fell off my radar, didn't it?

In any event... my new website is live! You may go admire kjkabza.com at your leisure. I didn't yet self-publish that other collection that I was hoping to have out by the end of last year, but (as we keep being reminded), we're living in unprecedented times, and to say that my 2020 got off track is an understatement.

I hope you're all managing some type of peace and progress yourselves in 2021!

HI KJ, good to hear from you!

KJ:
Your site looks great.

Its great. Lots of info, nothing feels jumbled together. Well thought design. Even you author info page reads very well.

Belated thanks, Jim and Andres! I'm in a long dry spell and won't have any new content on the site for awhile, so I'm glad it at least looks nice while sitting and waiting.

@ K.J. No worries, you have so much content its amazing. I'm hoping to have half of that in 10 years lol.

I spoke with author Anderson Atlas about this years book festival and it sounds pretty disappointing. I haven't seen any of the video streams. I do hope we can get news about some of our festivals coming back online here soon. I miss running into you guys.