A Kindle Christmas!

More than a week ago, on December 15th, a press release from Amazon.com stated that "Kindle devices remain the hottest products this holiday season – for the third week in a row, customers are purchasing well over 1 million Kindle devices per week, and Kindle Fire remains the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product across the millions of items available on Amazon.com since its introduction 11 weeks ago."

I wonder what the number will be by year's end. 5 million??


Whatever the number, as an author with numerous books at Kindle, I am happy to hear this news.


I like my Kindle, a gift from my son, daughter-in-law and grandson, last Christmas, and I also use Kindle on my PC.

So many book to chose from, including many from those of us who have chosen to self-publish many of our books. Here are some ideas to check out for books to put on your new Kindle or Kindle Fire.


Last week I read Andrew E. Kaufman's second book, The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted. It is a very good psychological thriller. You won't be disappointed! Andrew's first book will also keep you in suspense: the best-selling book, While the Savage Sleeps


Read the Interview I did with Andrew E. Kaufman here following the release of his first book.


For something different, yet suspenseful, is The Fourth Awakening Series by Rod Pennington and Jeffrey A. Martin, Ph.D. The first book in the best-selling spiritional fiction series is The Fourth Awakening. The second in the series, The Gathering Darkness was publ ished recently.

I also interviewed Rod Pennington.


Don Pendleton's Joe Copp Private Eye Series of six books are now all priced at .99 cents for the holidays.


I reduced the price on my own Catherine Winter Private Eye Series, Shattered Lens and Fractured Image.


Roulette, a crime novel by Don Pendleton and Linda Pendleton is now 3.99. This book turned out to be Don Pendleton's last novel. Don was the "father of the Action/Adventure genre."


The Death Gods by Richard S. Prather. It is his last novel, 61 years after the publication of Prather's first book in his best-selling Shell Scott Mystery Series.


A fascinating nonfiction memoir you might take a look at is Athena Demitrios' book, The Seasoning of the Soul. An inspirational read!


Check my Author Page at Amazon and you may see a variety of books, nonfiction and fiction, that may interest you. The California Gold Rush nonfiction books seem to find their home on Kindles all the time.


Happy Holidays! Happy reading. Don't you just love the new technology?!


~Linda

Creating Credible Fiction

Andrew E. Kaufman, author of While the Savage Sleeps, and the upcoming book, The Lion, The Lamb, The Hunted, wrote an interesting blog post, “Why the Decision to Kill off a Character can be Murder on an Author.”

Andrew said it well! Fiction has to be larger than life and credible. We have to build a realistic world as we create our stories. So I agree with his comment: “Our job, although writers of fiction, is to depict life in a realistic manner, make the reader forget she's actually reading.”

Our characters tell the story they want to tell and sometimes it can be difficult to kill of one of the characters. But the important thing in writing realistic characters is that even the bad guys may have some redeeming features. That makes them human. My husband, Don Pendleton, the “father of action/adventure,” was very good at that. Sometimes you hated when his bad guys were knocked off. He wrote in his book, Metaphysics of the Novel: The Inner Workings of a Novel and a Novelist:
“If you have villains in your story make sure you have made them powerful and resourceful, not reduced to the idiot level. In real life, the bad guys are highly formidable and dangerous individuals. Real life is full of grim games played by grim people. So should your fictional world be, if that is the type of story you are presenting. Do not indulge in some juvenile misunderstanding of the forces that move and shake this world. Some people are dangerous, not because a gun is in their hand, but because something cold and deadly is in their hearts. So make sure you are presenting a credible world with the world of your novel.”

After all, we are writing about the human situation, no matter what predicaments we place our characters in. Life itself presents challenges, drama, pain, joy, grief, wonder, and more, and a successful novelist is called upon to examine and develop deeper insights into the moving forces that power creativity. Writing is an art, and it is up to the artist to produce a living image of reality.

The author is in charge of his own fictional world, and that fictional world needs to be understandable, coherent, and credible. But it is our own story to create, and not everybody may like it. And that is just fine.

~Linda

Andrew E. Kaufman on 'The State of the Indie"

Andrew E. Kaufman, author of the #1 Suspense Thriller, While the Savage Sleeps, has written an excellent and insightful blog on Independent Publishing and his attendance at the Left Coast Crime Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico last week, over at Ctrl+Alt+Pub Blog.

His views and those of others he mentions, reflect the dramatic changes taking place in publishing with many of us chosing to self-publishing and not rely on agents and publishers but to take control of our works.

It's an exciting and invigoroting time not only me, but for many authors and for readers.

Also read my interview of Andrew here, and hey, buy his book, it will give you goosebumps, that's for sure. LOL

~Linda

Robert W. Walker Interviewed by Andrew E. Kaufman

Andrew E. Kaufman has posted an excellent interview with author, Robert W. Walker about his upcoming book, Titanic 2012-- Curse of the RMS Titanic, and why he decided to leave traditional publishing and move into independent e-book publishing after many years, and many books.

Read the full interview at Andrew's blog.

~Linda

Contest: Your Name in a Novel by Andrew E. Kaufman!

Do you want to be in an upcoming novel?! Andrew E. Kaufman, author of While the Savage Sleeps, has a contest going on his blog and one of his blog followers will win first prize: To be named as a character in his next novel!

Two second place winners will have a T-shirt with the Cover of his paranormal thriller, While the Savage Sleeps on it, and two others will receive autographed copies of his book.

So what are you waiting for? Contest ends soon...Go add your name as a follower of his blog...you may win.

Read the interview I recently did with Andrew here.

His book is at Kindle and will be in print shortly.

~Linda

Interview with Andrew E. Kaufman, Author of "While the Savage Sleeps"

My Interview with author, Andrew E. Kaufman

Linda: Andrew, congratulations on publishing your novel, While the Savage Sleeps, a forensic paranormal mystery thriller. It sounds like a fascinating novel. In reading your biography I see you received university degrees in journalism and political science and then went on to become an Emmy-nominated writer/producer in TV news media. So my first questions are: When did you become interested in writing? Did you write as a kid?

Andrew: For as long as I can remember I've always had a fascination with and a love for the written word. My mother (to whom I dedicated the book) was an avid reader, and I think that had a significant influence on me. Plus, I've always been a communicator and yet somewhat introverted. For me, writing seemed to work in both respects.

Linda: Who or what has influenced your writing and in what way?

Andrew: That's a tough one. I think for me, as far as writing goes, the influence was a cumulative process: One part actual life experiences, one part the many things I've read throughout the years. I don't think any one has had more of an influence than the other. More, my writing is reflection of all of those.

Linda: Who have been your favorite writers over the years? What books do you believe have influenced your writing? What books have most influenced your life and/or your world view?

Andrew: Every single one of them! It doesn't matter whether or not I enjoyed them; in certain ways they've all helped shape me and my writing. I've greatly admired many writers, and that, I think, drove me to be better myself. In others, I may not have admired them so much and as a result decided to avoid writing in the same manner. But yes, there are some writers I've enjoyed more than others. Dennis Lehane comes to mind, and Jonathan Kellerman, too. Both have a very unique voice, which to me is of the utmost importance. You could throw a page in front of me from either of them and I'd be able identify it in a heartbeat.

Linda: I love to ask writers how they receive their inspiration. Many feel their inspiration comes from beyond them at times as they are working with their characters. Have you experienced that in your writing? Do you visualize your scenes? Do you “walk” in your character’s shoes?

Andrew: I've been told by people who have read While the Savage Sleeps that my writing is very visual, that the scenes seemed to play out in their heads like a movie. I think that's because I'm very big on capturing the mood and visuals when I write. In my mind's eye, I'm constantly zooming in, panning, pulling away, and examining things—not in a lingering sense or to the point of distraction, but just enough to give people a sense of where they are while they're on that page. As for my characters, I think they are all extensions of my own personality. In order to portray them effectively and give them dimension, I think you have to really get inside their heads (or maybe it's the reverse, or both). If you don't do that, you end up with very flat characters. My protagonist, Cameron Dawson, has had a particularly difficult life. In order to effectively get that across to the reader, I needed to feel his pain as if it were my own. I was able to do that, but it was a very difficult and emotional process. There were times I literally had to take a break from him and move on to something else because I felt emotionally drained. I suppose for an author, portraying a character can at times be like getting into an acting role.

Linda: Tell us about While the Savage Sleeps, and how the idea for the story began.

Andrew: Believe it or not, it came to me in a dream; no joke. I'd been struggling for quite some time, trying to figure out my plot but not having much luck at all. I remember waking up one morning—or rather, sitting straight up in bed—and saying to myself: “That's it! I've got it!” I suppose my subconscious, or maybe something else, had been trying to tell me something. Perhaps the only way to get me to listen was while I was asleep and my defenses were down. Either way, it worked. The idea resonated strongly, and a novel was born.

In a nutshell, While the Savage Sleeps is the story of two strangers: distance separates them, a dark secret connects them, but a voice from the grave will draw them together. It begins in the fictional town of Faith, New Mexico where strange things are happening. People are disappearing and for others it's far worse. The answer lies not in their backyard but miles away where Kyle Bancroft's life is turning upside-down. She's seeing, hearing, and dreaming things she can't explain: flashbacks to World War II and an eerie hospital ward with locked doors, empty gurneys, and gutteral screams. To make matters worse, a ghostly green-eyed girl is complicating Kyle's vision with an urgent message: time is running out. Kyle’s otherworldly encounters are driving her straight toward Faith, where she and Cameron will need to find out whether the child speaking from the grave is dangerously evil or trying to help them uncover a secret the town has been hiding for more than fifty years.

Linda: You have taken what is becoming the new direction in publishing...self publishing, e-publishing, as many of us are doing. Why your decision to do so? Your book is available at Amazon Kindle. What other plans do you have for it? Will it also be in print soon?

Andrew: I feel very strongly about this. I spent more than a year querying agents, trying to find representation, and I had quite a few requests for the manuscript, as well as a lot of positive feedback. The comments were indeed very encouraging, things like: “It's very well written.” and “Compelling story.” and “Has tons of potential.” But in the end, many of them felt it was a genre that fell a bit too far outside their areas of expertise. Agenting these days has become extremely specialized. Most are very specific about what they feel they can sell. Because While the Savage Sleeps mixes two sort of unlikely bedfellows, forensics and the paranormal, I think that made it difficult to pin down, where genres are concerned and thus, a not-so-good candidate for agent representation. But I believe e-books and self publishing are about to change everything. This isn't your father's “vanity press” anymore. Amazon and many others are now paving the way for indie authors and allowing them to find their audiences, or perhaps visa versa. Regardless of what the naysayers think, this is a great time to be an author because it's a whole new game. Just look at Joe Konrath. He's selling his e-books hand over fist. As for print, yes, I'm currently in the process of working out the details on that and hope to have a hard copy available by the end of summer.

Linda: With your years of experience in writing, research, and skill as a journalist, how would you compare that to your experience of writing a novel?

Andrew: Two completely different worlds. When I wrote for television news, the stories were often 15 to 20 second blurbs—not exactly the most nurturing environment for creativity. Even when I produced special series, they were often only about a minute-thirty, and that was with soundbites. But on the other hand, it did teach me some valuable skills. For one, I learned to be economical with words. I admit I did go the other direction for a bit, a little crazy with words, but that I think was to be expected (I was verbally frustrated), however, I did come back around and tone it down. TV news also taught me to research my stories well. For While the Savage Sleeps, I actually attended an autopsy. I wanted my scene to not only be factually correct, I also wanted the readers to get a sense of the mood and nuances in that setting. I have to admit it was a truly nauseating experience, one I'd rather not have to experience again, but I don't think the book would have been the same without it.

Linda: One more question—what is your favorite quote?

Andrew: “And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” –Anais Nin

Linda: That’s a great quote. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to interview you for my blog, Andrew. Again, congratulations on getting your book out there, and the best of luck with it.

Andrew: The pleasure was mine. Thank you for having me!

Visit Andrew E. Kaufman's website and his blog.

~Linda