THE HANGING TREE

The Hanging Tree, my latest ebook, is now live on amazon. This is the fourth in my Rafferty & Llewellyn mystery series and my fourth ebook.


I've made a trailer. I've been having a little trouble uploading my trailers lately, so I hope this upload goes okay.

YES! SUCCESS!

PREPARING DEATH LINE FOR EPUBLICATION

Death Line is the third of the out of prints in my Rafferty & Llewellyn humorous mystery series that I'm publishing as an ebook. I've just reread it while I was adjusting the format after its conversion from an Amstrad disc and it strikes me as more serious than the other books. Its plot is also far more complicated. Whether those are good or bad things....

Anyway, I've just sent the book over to America to my ebook formatting lady, Kimberly Hitchens. If any of you are looking for a reliable and reasonably priced formatter for your ebooks you could do worse than use Hitch's services. You can contact her at hitch@Q.com. This is also the third of mine that Hitch will ready for epublishing. I'm looking forward to working with her again.

Although I've selected a photo from iStockPhoto.com for use as the basis for the cover, I thought I'd experiment a bit myself, just in case I could save myself a bit of money. I decided, because the book's called Death Line with a murder centred around a New Age business that deals in hand analysis (palm reading) and astrology, I thought I'd have a picture of a human hand with blood following the curve of the Life Line (to symbolize death). I also used a black cloth and pix of astrological symbols. What do you think? The one below is probably my best shot.

I tried to cut my own hand to get some blood, but apparently we have a houseful of blunt knives! Certainly none of them would cut your throat to oblige you. So I had to resort to other means. I didn't have any tomato ketchup, so I used tomato puree. Then I tried red nail polish. Nothing if not inventive!

Each time I set my props up, got the tomato gunge on my hand, took the shots, then cleaned up and put everything away, my husband complained there was this wrong with it or that wrong with it. So I did it again. Four attempts later...

Well, I thought it was pretty good for a book cover. Not too cluttered, limited colour palette, stark. Though Rick Capidamonte, who does my jacket graphics wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped. So we're going with the picture I first thought of from iStockPhoto with Rick adding various elements to the basic hand picture. I really like it. I love the colours and think it's pretty striking. What do you think of it?

Have you ever attempted to do your own book cover? Tell us about your experiences and if the experts rejected your brave attempts as they did mine or if you went on to use it in an actual publication. Put a link in your comment so we can see what you did.

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF

I've felt a bit footloose since my Blog Tour ended. Okay, I've been forcing myself to work my way through a second draft of Kith and Kill and I'm sorting out the formatting of my next ebook, Death Line, prepatory to sending it across the Pond to Hitch, the lovely American lady who turns my out of prints into ebooks. so you can see I haven't been idle. Just dealing with my email inbox takes half the day as I'm on so many lists. But, apart from all that, I don't know what to do with myself. And I don't know why. It's not as if I haven't done intensive stints before - God, I've had eighteen novels published (not to mention the unpublished ones) - but this seems different, somehow.

Perhaps it's because I've actually - in responding to the comments - been interacting with other human beings. I don't get to do this a lot as I rarely do signings or attend conferences. I, like other midlist authors, have found bookshops not much interested in hosting us for signings. And conferences are so expensive that I wouldn't be able to afford anything else if I attended all of those I'm supposed to attend as a crime author. So, apart from my husband, I spend a lot of time alone, just working. and no, it doesn't seem to make me noticeably more productive as part of the time is spent in replying to all those emails that flood my inbox.

Do many of you get to signings, conferences and other events? Do you sometimes feel that they take up an awful lot of time or money and that you get little back? I put up a link to a video made by another writer a little while ago and it showed the reality of signings for the majority of writers: sitting, staring into space, surrounded by your books, but alas no punters. And the one conference I went to seemed full of snobs who only wanted to know you if you were famous. So it seems I'm not really missing much. What do you think? Perhaps another Blog Tour beckons, one where I can interact with all those lovely readers who do love midlist writers. The only question is: can I find the stamina?

LAST DATES ON MY BLOG TOUR

Well, I've come to an end to my Blog Tour. It's been a lot of work, but I've really enjoyed it. It's been exciting checking for new comments each day and I've had some lovely ones - people really can be very kind and generous. Anyway, here are the last few dates and hosts on my tour. Check them out!

My 'Made it' Moment with host Jenny Milchman
http://www.jennymilchman.com/blog/?p=1257

'Sink or Swim' Interview with host Stacy Juba
http://stacyjuba.com/blog/2011/02/25/sink-or-swim-6-meet-detective-inspector-joseph-aloysius-rafferty-from-deadly-reunion/

Interview with host Marilyn Meredith.
http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/2011/02/meet-geraldine-evans-and-learn-about.html

I want to thank all seventeen of my hosts. They've been absolutely amazing! And to think they have guest bloggers all the time. They must be awesome at organisation. I take my hat off to each and every one of you. Thank you ladies and gent. You're all welcome on my blog at any time.

Oh. I nearly forgot. This is not part of my tour, but something I did separately and that just happens to have coincided with the last day of the tour. Anyway, here's an interview I did for Sylvia Massara of The Lit Chick Show! This one's the Real McCoy, with an introduction and everything, so you can ignore the previous interview I put up for this.

http://www.litchickshow.com/2011/02/murder-with-humour.html

MORE STOPS ON MY BLOG TOUR

Ten Tips for Writers with host Nancy J Cohen
http://nancyjcohen.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/tips-for-writers/

Third excerpt of Deadly Reunion with host Debbi Mack
http://midlistlife.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/excerpt-from-deadly-reunion-a-guest-post/

An interview with host Wendy Gager
http://wsgager.blogspot.com/2011/02/mitch-malone-mondays-geraldine-evans.html

Fourth excerpt of Deadly Reunion with host Peg Herring
http://itsamysterytomepegherring.blogspot.com/

Fifth excerpt of Deadly Reunion with host Chris Redding
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/2011/02/excerptuesday-geraldine-evans.html

How to put a video book trailer together with host Marian Allen
http://www.marianallen.com/2011/02/a-deadly-reunion-with-geraldine-evans

An interview with host Kaye George
http://travelswithkaye.blogspot.com/2011/02/guest-blogger-geraldine-evans.html

What a lot! Sorry - I should have been putting these up every day. Trouble is, I've been getting deeply involved in writing my next book as well as correcting the formatting of Death Line which I've had converted from an Amstrad disk preparatory to putting it up as another ebook, so, as you can imagine, my head's been pretty full.

DEADLY REUNION VIDEO BOOK TRAILER

I've just made a Video Book Trailer for DEADLY REUNION, the latest novel in my humorous Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series. Here's a short blurb to tell you a little about the book:

Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty is barely back from his honeymoon before he has two unpleasant surprises. Not only has he another murder investigation - a poisoning, courtesy of a school reunion, he also has four new lodgers, courtesy of his Ma, Kitty Rafferty.

Ma is organising her own reunion and since getting on the internet, the number of Rafferty and Kelly family attendees has grown, like Topsy. In his murder investigation, Rafferty has to go back in time to learn of all the likely motives of the victim's fellow reunees. But it is only when he is reconciled to his unwanted lodgers, that Rafferty finds the answers to his most important questions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awvRkiuwoFs

TEN TIPS FOR WRITERS BLOG TOUR POST

Why not visit Nancy J Cohen's blog and read my Ten Tips for Writers. You never know, you might learn something fresh! This is the latest stop on my Blog Tour:  http://nancyjcohen.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/tips-for-writers/

ARTICLE ON MY BLOG TOUR WITH HOST PEG BRANTLEY: HOW I CREATED MY EBOOKS

Here's today's post, with a 'Thank you' to Peg and Rhonda (see previous post) for hosting me.

If you're interested in bringing out an ebook, you could do worse than read this. You'll even learn how much it cost me! Here's the link:

http://suspensenovelist.blogspot.com/2011/02/one-authors-decision-to-e-publish.html

BLOG TOUR POST WITH HOST RHONDA DOSSETT

Follow my Blog Tour. Here's the latest post: http://thestilettogang.blogspot.com/2011/02/princess-of-crime.html

WRITE THE FIRST 250 WORDS OF A CRIME NOVEL CONTEST!

WRITE THE FIRST PAGE (250 WORDS) OF A CRIME NOVEL CONTEST!
 
And win 3 signed copies of my novels PLUS, if the winner goes on to finish their novel, I will read and critique it. ENTER NOW UNTIL 31 JANUARY 2011.

I will also write a critique of the winner's entry.

For (brief) rules and to enter, go to my website: http://www.geraldineevans.com/