blogs
4-5-2025 I will be one of the speakers at monthly writing group meeting this week. The topic is 'challenges I've faced in the publishing process'. That should be interesting.
A little good news. The professionals... in particular agents and publishers... always want to know how many followers authors have. I now have over 1,000 for Christine Dixon on Facebook. Does anyone under forty use Facebook? (At least one thousand do. LOL)
4-4-2025 FRUSTRATED...Last month I entered five print copies of Tender Was The Lie in a Goodreads drawing. It ended April 1st. The winners were chosen, but when I clicked on the link to get their names and addresses, I was informed I didn't have the authority. It seems as if everything I try to do with Goodreads is a hassle. I have done everything possible to get their names and addresses to no avail. I'm more than frustrated. If the winners don't get their free books, they''ll blame the author. Me.
3-22-2025 Las night I had the pleasure of attending one of my author friend's new book launch. Topper Jones is his name. He writes mystery novels. It is the second in a series and he's a fantastic writer. If you like mysteries, check him out. You won't be disappointed. One of the questions was... do you know the ending of your book before you start? His answer didn't startle me, as I am a pantser. (You write by the seat of your pants) He told us he has a good idea where the book is going, as I do, but sometimes our characters just take us in a different, unexpected direction. And that's when the fun begins.
3-7-2025
It takes months, years, blood, sweat, and tears to write 92,000 words. Then agonize over finding an agent and or publisher. After that, you spend weeks, months, years and money on marketing the book. When all I wanted to do was write books readers will enjoy.
2-18-2025
I know. It's been awhile. Busy with the new book. And everyone is trying to sell me their marketing services. I signed up for one. It was affordable if you consider most want hundreds or thousands of dollars. Got nothing for my money.
Problem is ... if you aren't with one of the top publishers, and are bringing in a million dollars a year, or $500K, they won't spend a dime on you. I recently discovered the million dollars a year authors get 90% of the marketing budget. The $500K authors get 10%. The rest get no money. Smaller and small publishing houses don't spend money on marketing either. It's up to the author. Most will not make more than $100 a year I'm told. And yet authors continue to write. Why? Because we love writing! We have something to share. Something to say that will brighten your day, make you think, reconsider, forgive, accept or give love.
9-10-2024
The publisher released Tender was the lie two weeks ago. I have been busy with social media and creating an author page. the publisher didn't include my tHREE, 5-star Editor reviews on amazon ! so i tried to do it myself with no success. Editor reviews are extremely important so eventually i added them to my bio.
6-10-2024
My manuscript is now with one of the editors. The publisher also sent me a mockup of the cover. I'll post it if they give me permission to do so.
I get a lot of questions from beginning writers. Here is my first piece of advice. If you are a serious writer I strongly encourage you to attend a writer's critique group, either in person or on line.
5/20/2024
Received a publishing contract last week from a reputable, traditional publishing house. Remember, open a book and you enter a new world.
5/13/2024
Trying to build an online following. Way out of my comfort zone. Which makes me terrible at it. I only have 269 followers on Facebook. Or are they just friends? Hmmm. .
5/9/2024
My manuscript is still in the editing stage. Getting published is a long process. Longer than I imagined. Even though my good friend and fellow author Adriana Allegri warned me about the time it takes. Her debut book was scheduled to be released this month after a year of going through editing etc. but now it won't be until around November.
I know. It's been a while since I have posted. Been busy writing. Think of this...
"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
Marcus Tellius Cicero
The other day, an author friend of mine, posed a question. Do you think a book is less worthy if you find typos, misspelled words, missing commas etc?
It made me think of a book I started reading the other day written by another author friend of mine. There are only two characters in the chapter, but at the end, the female character's name was changed to another character's name. It had to read it several times to be sure it was a mistake and it was. Which is odd because there are so many eyes on a book before it is finally published. His publisher, Wild Rose, won't change it.
Would love to hear if mistakes influence how much you like or dislike a book
There are smaller, independent publishing companies that accept non-agented submissions. Going to submit to them and forget agents for the time being. Finding an agent could add another year or more to getting published.
Submitting to agents is a daunting task. The query letter, the synopsis. I'm terrible at that.
I meet with my writing group tomorrow. Need to bring 5 more pages of my new manuscript to pass out.