Tip of the week: an important comma that makes a difference

I'll make it short this week; nevertheless it's something I wanted to point out as I've read quite a few self-published books or edited a lot of manuscripts where this particular comma is missing.
For many it might not be important, but it's rather interesting 5o see how the meaning of a sentence can be altered, just by inserting this tiny little punctuation mark. It's used mainly in dialogue, or when the character writes a letter/e-mail; in any case, one person is addressed by name or nickname.


"Could you please explain what you're talking about, love?"
"Hi, lovely blog visitor."
"Hello, everyone."
"I know, Stella, what you mean."
"Stella, it was you, wasn't it?"
"Good morning, reader."
"Thanks, dear buyer of my book."

Here is an example about altering the meaning:
"I don't know Stella." (Someone has no clue who Stella is.)
"I don't know, Stella." (Someone tells Stella that he or she has no clue.)

Okay this should be the small editing tip for today. I wish you all a happy Sunday.

Find out more about my writing and books

A new year, a new interview and soon a new book to come out. Yes, it seems that I'm starting 2012 with a bang. Candlelight Sinner is in the correcting process and should be released by end of this month. That's my third published book and it shall not be the end of it. There's no stopping that Stella Deleuze.

But first things first: Morgen Bailey has posted an interview with me on her rather versatile blog. She asked lots of questions about how and what I write and of course I've answered them.

So if you're curious to find out more, pop by her blog and leave a comment or share the link. If you are an author, she'll be happy to hear from you, too; she posts an interview a day and she asks good and intelligent questions.

This blog is still alive.

No, I haven't forgotten about you guys; I'm just rather much in post moving stress. My new flat is great, but I'm still sitting between packed boxes, everything is chaos and I can't find anything. I'm constantly searching for something. The iguana still hasn't his home complete either. I'm working on it, both: the vivarium and my flat. The big sheets didn't fit through the staircase, so we had to leave them downstairs for the night and saw a bit off to make them fit. Now my friend knows how to use power tools. Under my careful instructions and a minor incident with the blade (nobody has been injured), everything went almost smoothly.

I'm battered and bruised, though, but that's okay, they say if you don't you haven't really moved. Right now, I'm waiting for a handyman to come and fix the water pressure and being made homeless for a few hours, I'll sort of the handover of the keys to the old flat. When I'm back I'll hopefully be able to finish the vivarium and will go to bed early, after a nice hot bath in cocoa butter (or similar).

Just you wait, I feel a short story coming out of this disastrous move; I say disastrous because things went a bit pear-shaped. But the reward is a wonderful flat with the nicest landlord one could wish for and in addition to that: all neighbours are rather wonderful, too.

Don't worry, I'll be back.

Stella Schwarzenegger. (Sorry it was stronger than me.)

Minefield e-book pricing

Since I'm going to release a new novel soon, I'm once again faced with the decision of how to price the book. I normally start with a low introduction price for a limited period of time, then go up to $3.49 which is about £2.50 give or take. And even that is awfully low compared to the work I put in. Whatever I do, I'll win and lose readers.

On the Amazon forum I read that many don't even bother with 'cheap' books anymore, because to them cheap=bad quality. They seem to have had some negative experiences.
Then you have readers who say they won't buy a book from a new and unknown author if it's not under a dollar or pound, which puts us self-published authors into an awkward position: we just can't win, but we want to. Readers, that is.

I'm beginning to think sites like smashwords or Project Gutenberg, where readers can download thousands of free e-books, has done the Indie market more harm than good; yes even the low pricing somehow doesn't seem right. For many authors the book took at least a year, for some even years to write, so it's not really fair to expect a low price. I know quite a few authors who have put a great deal of time and effort into their books before publishing them; they meet the standards of traditionally published books and I think these authors should be rewarded.

To be clear: I think having a book for free for a short period -- like the recent Amazon promotion -- is a great marketing tool, but handing out your book for free is like going to the office every day and not getting paid. I personally will leave the short stories on a low price, but will sell my novels for a more reasonable amount.

Since e-books seem to be the future, I think maybe it's time for us Indie authors to take action and set the prices higher, but also make sure we release good quality novels so the gap between traditionally published books and ours will close over time.

Are you self-published or a reader? What is your opinion?

And suddenly it's a new year

Happy New Year 2012

to all of you, who visit regularly, who take the time to comment, to those who stumbled over my blog and come back, as well as to you, who just visit for the first time. 

I hope you had a splendid night; full of joy, surrounded by lovely people and that the hangover isn't too bad either.

2011 ended rather exciting for me: I might actually really move house and will therefore be able to get rid of my horrible upstairs neighbours. Keep your fingers crossed. 

I had a wonderful last evening of the year; my friend John came over and I cooked. 

First we had butternut squash cream soup then seabass teriyake style with jasmin rice, John brought cheesecake and a wine. And believe it or not: as always when I have visitors around, it was absolutely quiet upstairs!

We chatted until about 3am and then fell asleep, stuffed, exhausted and tired.  Successful and safe into the new year, no big party, no drunken people, no arguments. That's how I like it. 

Normally I would post a Tip of the week today, but I assume that many of you are rather knackered, so I'll do that next week. My only advice for now is to take it easy, drink lots of water, eat a nice fry up and let 2012 roll on.

Wish you all a great year with plenty of wonderful times, lots of health, wealth and most of all: love.

Thank you for your loyalty.

Love, 
Stella

Be the first to read my sequel!

If you are biting your nails because you can't wait to get your hands on the sequel to No Wings Attached, here's a chance to do so very soon. Or if you haven't read the first book yet and are curious what it's all about, but didn't get around to buy it, fear not, with a bit of luck you'll be able to snuggle up with the romantic comedy this weekend.

Read2Review is hosting a book give away today. And the lucky winner will receive No Wings Attached right now, and Candlelight Sinner in January, pre release. You'll be the first to read it and it's for free. All you need to do is answer a simple question and spread the word, then the books will be yours. And who knows, maybe I'll throw in another two for two more lucky winners?

So, what are you waiting for? Tell everyone who can't run fast enough and keep your fingers crossed.

Tip of the week: How to do major rewrites

Major rewrites was something alien to me. I must admit having had the huge task before me for the first time, I had my struggles in the beginnings. I get easily confused if you give me three sheets of paper, let alone doing it on screen. Everyone has a different system and I received some advice which, frankly, didn't help me. I never edit on paper, for it doesn't have a better effect than on screen, at least not for me. I'm talking major edits: deleting huge chunks, moving/rewriting/adding scenes or characters. That's nothing you could do on paper, at least I can't.

Since I'm an editor myself, I often make my clients do the same, but they have an advantage: I tell them where or what to cut or add or even how. So they have guidance. Something I didn't have. Okay, that's not entirely true; I had a few wonderful people reading the book and giving feedback. They confirmed where I thought the book might need work. And I can officially say that, at some point, the book bored me stiff. And I couldn't even blame someone else for it, no, it was all my fault. Luckily, I followed my own advice and didn't touch the book for several months, which results in me reading with (almost) fresh eyes and that again resulted in my deleting an impressive 9k. 

Here's how I tackled the massive undertaking:
First, I copied the complete book into a new document and saved it
Then I read through it and made comments on what to add along the way (highlighted them in yellow) and deleted all the boring bit and bobs.
A few things I wanted to keep to use later, I copied into another document named miscellaneous
When I had finished reading the whole book, I started to rearrange scenes; I had one in the end that I wanted to place smack bang in the middle of the book and did exactly that.
That drastic move meant I needed to iron out the seams so it wouldn't confuse the reader later.
After that I went to find the yellow highlighted comments and added a scene, character or prose, depending on what the comment said. I wrote those in a new document to make corrections easier.

This concept seems to work for me and I will use it in future, if I ever need to do a heavy rewrite again. I'm not finished yet, but I refilled 2k of the 9k I lost. I might not make the 76k I had before, but it doesn't matter. 72k is a good size, too. As long as it's a tight and enjoyable read.

How do you go about it? The same? Completely different? What's your secret weapon?