The Birth of a Novel, and Some Comments on Commitments

The other day a blogger took me to task for being disappointed that one of the blogs that signed up for my tour didn’t post the guest post I gave them, or respond in any way to queries about it. There was going to be a review at that tour stop too…something I’ve come to anticipate, as I’ve gotten only a moderate number so far on the book. Here’s the thing.

There was a bare minimum of effort required for that blogger to meet their commitment. I wrote the post, and I handed it in to them more than a month ahead of time. I provided a free copy of my book and, while that blog does have a review policy that says reviews not guaranteed, they committed to the review when they chose it as an option on the blog tour AND their own policy states that if they just couldn’t finish, or whatever, that they will say so… They said nothing.

Thankfully, the talented Michelle Lee let me borrow her blog space, and, albeit a day late, the Character Interview with LENORE is live (link below). Maybe I have unreasonable expectations, but these things have two-way commitments. I met and exceeded mine, and it’s frustrating and off-putting to have that work ignored. Enough on that. I hope nothing horrible happened in the life of the blogger in question, and I wish them well, but as a cautionary note – if you set up a blog tour, vetting the blogs carefully is important, and one thing I would check is how long it’s been in operation (the blog) and how regularly it’s updated. Also important? Traffic, comments, and popularity. If most of the traffic on a particular post is channeled through my own post about it on my blog, then I didn’t really need that other blog at all…the idea is to diversify and build the audience. I hope I’m doing that. On the up side, 287 people (or so) have signed up to win one of the prizes…

Today’s post is about the birth of Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe. It covers the pre-story in Kali’s Tale, and moves on to explain how the book came into being. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Here’s a snippet:

“Eleven months ago, I wrote the following at the beginning of a post at my website and blog:

“I’ve started (finally) working on the next Donovan DeChance book. This book will follow directly on the tail of the events in Book IV, Kali’s Tale – still a stand-alone story, and still something you could read without having read the others, though I realize that as time goes on…and the series grows… this is less and less true. It’s always best to start at the beginning. It’s just not possible to rehash everything properly without detracting from the new story…”

READ THE ENTIRE POST AT PARANORMAL DIMENSIONS ->

THE TOUR SO FAR:

Read a Character interview with LENORE (My version) at Michelle Lee’s blog

Read my post about what influences my writing at Rinn Reads!

Read my guest post about Donovan DeChance at the Paranormal Book Club

Read the guest post about memorable characters, and Cletus J. Diggs and the review at Brooke Blogs. She liked it!

Read my post about romance in books over at Fierce Dolan’s Blog..

My post about why I’m glad Nevermore was not published traditionally – read it at the What Readers Want blog!

How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!

Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!

Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads

Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new