Party in the SKDunning Household!

Today, I received the Certificate of Registration for The Trouble With Henry from the United States Office of Copyright.

I am now a public record. Woot!

I am breaking out the bottle of Anniversary Whiskey my husband and I purchased on our honeymoon in Ireland eight years ago to celebrate. 

To give you a timeline, I paid my filing fee and submitted the request on May 10, 2013. 

And it's here. And this is awesomesauce. Pardon an unprofessional "GO ME!" moment.

but.

GO ME!

NaNoWriMo: Day One

Yes, I'm participating in the craziness of National Novel Writing Month. The 30 days of November were created for just one thing: 50k words.

No tricks, no weapons. Skill against skill alone.

Sorry, I just channeled The Princess Bride there.

50k in 30 days equals about 1667 words a day. Today, I've logged in with 1627. So I'm 40 words behind. At this rate, I'll finish 50k on December 1st.

If you want to see what I'm up to, check out www.nanowrimo.org.

This year, I'm tackling the sequel to The Trouble With Henry. Tentatively titled The Cold Side of Trouble, this installment will hopefully be packed full of suspense and snarky humor.

If nothing else, I'm going on a roller coaster ride this month, and my intent is to cross the finish line with a workable 1st draft. Now, November is also a busy month for me, and I'm already starting with a bit behind the eight ball. I'm working the Renaissance Faire in Escondido, California this weekend, and I'm staying at my in-laws, so I'll have to squeeze the next 3370 words between faire, travel, and visiting with family.

Nothing like burning the candle at both ends. Please forgive me if I'm radio silent for the next few days. I'm going to try to keep you updated with my progress, not to pester you or brag or anything. If I make a commitment to keeping you in the loop, then I'm more apt to keep typing words until I cross the finish line.

So cheers! I'm off to bed now. It'll probably be the last sleep I get for the month, so I plan on making the most of it.

Shel

Reintroducing: The Trouble With Henry

The Trouble With Henry
Is Now Available
Through More Channels!

That's right! 

The Trouble With Henry is now available for more platforms:

Through Amazon for Kindle

Through Barnes & Noble for Nook

Through Smashwords for Sony, Apple, Palm, and other PC platforms

And I haven't forgotten about the "Dead Tree" format. Stay tuned for an actual physical book. 

And The Winner Is...

Thank you so much for everyone who participated in helping me choose the cover for The Trouble With Henry. I took each and every comment, vote, criticism, and voice under careful advisement.

The majority of you voted option 2, followed very closely by option 7.

So how did I narrow it down? It was a very hard decision at first, until I happened upon the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Money-Entangled-Suspense-ebook/dp/B00CK51J3U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376238870&sr=1-1&keywords=for+love+or+money

So I didn't want to go there, since it was in the same genre. And that left option 2.

Except, looking at the black and white thumbnail of option 2 on my mom's Sony Reader, nothing shows. Not the title, not my name. It was just a blob of grey. I hope you all agree that situation isn't good.

So I can't use option 7, and I can't use option 2.

When you take those options away, option 1 comes closest to option 2, and to the overall theme of the story. Not to mention, the black, red, and white pop onto screens. I know the biggest gripe I heard about the artwork in option one looked like bad CGI (computer generated imagery), in a word: cartoony. While I agree that a "real" photo would have been ideal here, there's something I should probably admit to you: The "real" feet of option 2 gave me the creeps. Like I was looking at a Stephen King novel or something. 

And so I thought I'd have to pass.

What I didn't like about option 1, was that my subtitle was up above my main title. Not that it mattered much visually, I think, as the white text up top balanced out the rest of the graphics. The problem is a personal one; when I started this endeavor, I did't envision my subtitle atop my title. So, while my mom and dad are guilt-tripping me into trusting my artist and not trying to fix something that ain't broke, it still bothered me. 

Fortunately, James at humblenations@gmail.com is the friendliest sort of chap one could ever hope to meet. (He was gunning for the black and yellow title with the girl in leather pants, incidentally) and he agreed to rework the graphics once more. I asked him to add a tagline at the top, just to see if it worked.

I don't think it did. The cleanliness disappeared and it looked cluttered. But I still didn't like my subtitle on top. So I'm going with subtitle underneath, no tagline on top, and I'm a very happy camper.

Again, thanks to all who helped me out. I'll reintroduce The Trouble With Henry later, after I update Amazon and upload it to other venues.

Cheers!
Shel

Decisions, Decisions - The Trouble With Henry

Okay Faithful Readers!

I have a decision to make and I'll welcome your help. Which of the following shall I choose for the National Best Seller The Trouble With Henry?

What do y'all think?

No Writer Is An Island

Duck On The Water, Heritage Park, Cerritos California

If there's anything I have learned these few days since uploading my books onto Amazon.com, it's that I am part of a community. I am not alone in this universe.

My parents have emailed everyone they know: family, friends, maybe even the billing department at Southern California Edison. I don't have regular interactions with most of these people, even the ones I'm related to. It's a humbling circumstance to hear congratulations and other positive feedback from loved ones, even more from pseudo-strangers I respect.

And my HUSBAND! I loved the man before, but wow! He's been the anchor of my network for a long time socially, but again, wow! I want to marry him all over again, except we can't afford to.

My good friend and editor has gone above and beyond the call of duty with support. She was the one who made me think I could do this anyway. So OMG! (sorry, I had a girly-girly moment there. I'll get better soon)

And all the wonderful, wonderful people at Write On Edge. I am speechless. Truly.

I don't know what to say, except that I appreciate you all. I love you all. And a giant thank you to everyone who took the time to investigate my book, and a more gianter (yes I know that's not a word) thank you to everyone who has purchased the books so far, or who are planning to in the future. There are a lot of wonderful authors out there, and a great many worthwhile books to read, I'm glad my books have room on your shelves.

I don't think the butterflies in my stomach will ever disappear. You have all been so DAMNED PERFECT!

Shel

My New Books!

Hey everyone!

This is a shameless plug. Actually, it's probably more of a twisted pats-self-on-back.

Let me explain.

I have been slow to post on my site, and I have been noticeably absent from Write On Edge and Terrible Minds both. Why, the crickets ask? Well, I've been holed up researching and re-researching and tweaking (not the drugs, the words) to bring The Trouble With Henry to published.

And in the meantime, I unexpectedly finished a short story I was working on titled Hagatha Kittridge Must Die.

While I'm still in desperate need of decent cover art, I finally bit the bullet and uploaded BOTH stories up to Amazon yesterday.

The Trouble With Henry and Hagatha Kittridge Must Die are both available for purchase now for Kindles around the world.

EEP!