Raining Down Redemption is officially under contract with my publisher!

My publisher accepted Raining Down Redemption which means it's coming soon! I can't wait for you all to read Jordan and Reggie's story and hope you love it as much as I loved writing it!

The image above is not the cover, just something that fits the mood of the book. As soon as I have any other updates for you, I'll post them here!

Thanks for reading,
~BK

A note from my editor

This morning bright and early at 6:20am, sitting in my email inbox was THE email. You know the big one...the editing email.

Dun
Dun
Duunnnn!

Let me say, I was pretty worried that she would come back and say something along the lines of:

1. You need to add 10,000 words, or
2. You need to delete these X amount of chapters

She didn't say either of those, so I wiped the sweat from my brow! But here is a little of what she did say:

Hi BK!

First of all let me say that you made me cry and that's not nice! But honestly, I really enjoyed your book and I could really connect with Jemma (especially the grandma story line) and that was cool. You also did the love triangle in a really cool way. A lot of times triangles seem overdone but this was interesting because it was a rock star and who hasn't fancied themselves in love with a rock star who's spoken to their soul? So glad I'm the one getting to work with you!!

Did you catch what she said?!?! She CRIED!!! Seriously, as a writer, having your readers cry is one of the biggest compliments and one you strive for...okay, well, not every writer strives for that. But as a contemporary writer, yes, I do strive for pulling the emotional strings.

So, one of my author goals has already been achieved even before RAINING DOWN RULES has been released, and I am so very flattered!

I'm still waiting on my final cover, and hopefully I can reveal it soon.

Where I'm at in the publishing process, pt. 3

I thought it might be fun to do some documenting of my publishing experience.  Now that it has been three weeks since I signed my contract with Limitless Publishing some fun things are in the works!

Let's recap:

Sept. 10 - received a partial request from Limitless
Sept. 14 - received a full manuscript request from Limitless
Sept. 20 - received an offer of a contract to publish Chasing Forever
Sept. 24 - received contract
Sept. 28 - signed contract and became part of the Limitless Publishing Team
Oct. 1 - received a cover questionnaire, book blurb sample request and synopsis request
Oct. 6 - a new title has been given—Raining Down Rules
Oct. 9 - pre-edits come in and I've been assigned an editor
Oct. 12 -sent back my pre-edits
Oct. 14 received my book release date!!!

Every publishing house has their standards for formatting a novel, and for the most part, I'm sure they are all fairly similar.  That being said, since I've never published a book before I was a little nervous about the pre-edits.  But they came in and, even though I did have a few things to change, it wasn't terribly scary—PHEW!  So here is some stuff I learned:

Double spaces after . ? ! are OUT.  Seriously?  Like when did this happen?  My thumbs are constantly tapping twice on the space bar and I CANNOT STOP IT!  In case you haven't noticed, even my blog posts are riddled with double spaces.  It is ingrained in my brain and my fingers type on autopilot.  I. Must. Resist.

Em Dashes—now I know how to make them!  I kind of felt stupid when I learned the keystrokes to do them, but now I know and will never forget.  On a Mac (which is what I'm currently using) it's SHIFT+OPTION+- and you magically get —.  For the PC you type the word--and then type the next word.

Alright does not equal all right.  So, apparently alright isn't grammatically correct, it's all right.  Check!

There are more than one type of "quotes".  As in smart (curly) quotes vs. straight quotes.  See example below.  What I want to know is how in the heck my novel had both types in it?!?!   Anyhow, they've all been corrected.

"That's a 'magic' sock." wrong (straight quotes)

“That’s a ‘magic’ sock.” right (smart quotes)

Get rid of filler words or over used phrases.  Writing is different than just plain talking.  When we talk we use filler words to help us make our point to to emphasize something.  In writing, we really don't need to do that.  So here are a few words and phrases to search for in your novels or to avoid altogether unless they are absolutely necessary (in dialogue sometimes it's okay):

that
get
just
really
feel

very
actually
make their way
began to / started to
for the most part
just then

There are others out there and check out these links for more, here, here & here.  Search through your novel to find these words/phrases and see if the sentence can work without it and if so, DELETE it.  Or, find another more appropriate word to use in its place.  (Did you notice how my words above sorta look like the bottle from I Dream of Jeannie?)

I was also assigned an editor for my novel which is really exciting.  She's scheduled my book to begin edits on December 9th and have them back to me by December 15th.  So in other words, I have to wait almost 2 months until I begin my real edits.

Patience grasshopper.

Now, one last thing.  Get ready for this...

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Raining Down Rules will be released to the world and I couldn't be happier!!

Where I'm at in the publishing process, pt. 2

 I thought it might be fun to do some documenting of my publishing experience.  Now that it has been two weeks since I signed my contract with Limitless Publishing some fun things are in the works!

Let's recap:

Sept. 10 - received a partial request from Limitless
Sept. 14 - received a full manuscript request from Limitless
Sept. 20 - received an offer of a contract to publish Chasing Forever
Sept. 24 - received contract
Sept. 28 - signed contract and became part of the Limitless Publishing Team
Oct. 1 - received a cover questionnaire, book blurb sample request and synopsis request
Oct. 6 - a new title has been given!

So here we are, Oct. 9th and folks, a change in your novel's title during publishing is inevitable and mine is no exception.  Remember the list from last week?

1. Seeking Forever
2. Finding Forever
3. Grasping Eternity
4. Chasing Eternity
5. Rules of the Heart
6. Searching for Forever
7. Beautiful Forever
8. Raining Down Rules
9. A Chance At Forever
10. The Beat of My Heart

Well, which one did you like?  The publisher and I both agreed and have decided upon one of the ten listed above ^^^.  Here is where I'd love to insert a drum roll, with sound effects of course.
.
..
...
....
.....
....
...
..
.
..
...
....
.....
....
...
..
.

I think it's a perfect title as the novel takes place in the Spring—hence the rain—and Jemma has her set of rules she's created to protect herself, yet she finds them crumbling around her—so the rain is bringing down the rules.  I'm super excited to see my cover when it's ready and even more excited to reveal it to all of you.

Let the game of patience begin...well, at least let it continue!

PS - use #RDRNovel on Twitter for sneak peaks and updates of Raining Down Rules.

Where I'm At in the Publishing Process

I thought it might be fun to do some documenting of my publishing experience.  Now that it has been one week since I signed my contract with Limitless Publishing some fun things are in the works!

Let's recap:

Sept. 10 - received a partial request from Limitless
Sept. 14 - received a full manuscript request from Limitless
Sept. 20 - received an offer of a contract to publish Chasing Forever
Sept. 24 - received contract
Sept. 28 - signed contract and became part of the Limitless Publishing Team
Oct. 1 - received a cover questionnaire, book blurb sample request and synopsis request

So here we are, Oct. 2nd and I have returned the cover questionnaire, blurb sample and synopsis all of which will either go into helping the designers create my cover and will help with creating the actual back of the book blurb.  I have also submitted ten different title ideas for the novel (since the title will be changing - as it does so much in this industry).  Here are the titles I sent over:

1. Seeking Forever
2. Finding Forever
3. Grasping Eternity
4. Chasing Eternity
5. Rules of the Heart
6. Searching for Forever
7. Beautiful Forever
8. Raining Down Rules
9. A Chance At Forever
10. The Beat of My Heart

Now, who really knows if any of these will make the final cut, but they were options I felt applied to Jemma, Jordan and Vic's story.

Next week just may bring some pre-edits for my novel, we'll just have to wait and see - but plan on getting weekly status updates as they come!!