Questions From Goodreads

I got a nice review from this book website (https://www.goodreads.com/author/860783.Francis_Moss/questions) , and some questions: Where did you get the idea for your most recent book? Losing Normal started as a dream I had, sitting in an office while a producer read my script.

A Couple Of Five-Star Reviews...

The links lead to the full reviews. From the Book Review Directory: “Suspenseful, disturbing, and intense, Losing Normal presents a frighteningly realistic world where no one is safe from the control of advanced artificial intelligence. Moss’s diverse characters are unique, touching, and relatable, even when they feel less than

Amazon sale ends today

Losing Normal is going back to regular price on Amazon tonight at midnight, EST. Currently at $.99 for the e-book & $7.95 for the paperback, the price on December 10 will be $3.99 & $12.95. You can order here: http://tinyurl.com/y7nvponm Or on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.

Losing Normal is on sale

The Losing Normal sale is on. $.99 for the e-book, $7.95 for the paperback. It ends December 9. Reviews will really help my book gain a wider audience, so please write one. The Amazon link is: https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Normal-Francis-…/…/1732791023/ The Goodreads link is: https://www.goodreads.

SCBWI web page for my book

The Society of Childrens’ Book Writers & Illustrators (the SCBWI acronym is no less a mouthful… “scubwee”?), has a web page for Losing Normal

Boss! De book! De book! (thanks, Herve Villechaize. R.I.P.)

Finally! Losing Normal is available on Amazon, in paperback & e-book formats. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732791023. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I cannot yet make a discounted price available to my subscribers. Amazon only makes one price available, $3.

A nice blurb from Doug Van Dyke

In “Losing Normal”, Francis Moss has done his research in helping the reader see strange events in the eyes of a child on the Asperger spectrum. We’re taken on a thrilling adventure in a world morphing into the abnormal. Aside from a good adventure, it also helps the reader

Losing Normal is on Amazon

It’s the paperback. The e-book is undergoing some revisions. You can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/yctqfbcz Hope you enjoy it.

Writers, Artists, Poets

I’ll be at these events, signing my book (pre-release editions).

Losing Normal cover

After a lot of back & forth with my editor/publisher, I have a final cover for my book. Here were the initial suggestions: The first one I had an emotional connection with, because I designed it. But I think Jose was right in saying it was too clipart-y. #s 2

R.I.P. Cartoonscripts & Ninja Turtle Collectibles

I shut down the sites because they were collecting spiderwebs & hackers. But folks interested in scripts, storyboards, artwork & other chotchkes can download them from the link Cartoon Stuff.

12 Common Writing Mistakes Even Bestselling Authors Make (from BookBub)

By Ricardo Fayet This is an abbreviated version. Read the whole post here: http://tinyurl.com/yd8eczh9 1. Show, don’t tell This might be the most commonly cited writing mistake among editors. Authors are naturally prone to telling rather than showing. This means that rather than letting the reader

Why not write?

An interesting blog post from Sam Kerns. 1.      Being All Talk and No Action In order to become a writer, you have to write. 2.       A Fear of Failure or Embarrassment You make yourself vulnerable when you put your thoughts in a book or article, and that keeps many people

A couple of nice blurbs

These will be in the book on what the publisher calls my “praise page.” “Losing Normal is a thrilling, fast-paced, action-packed book made even better by the fact that it is also thoughtful, provocative, fully-contemporary and funny. You will enjoy reading it, as much as I did.” —Francisco X. Stork,

Update

It’s been a month. I am deep in the weeds of self-publishing. The agent (how unexpected!) said ‘no’ to my MS, so I’m back on track. I do have a newsletter which you can sign up for there. ► Signup bonus: you can download a free sample chapter from

Now What?

So anyway, here I am, right in the middle of self-publishing with Pedernales Publishing, a company that Connie Hood, a friend and author recommended when I get a request from a literary agent for a full MS of Losing Normal! From a query I sent in April! I sent the

Self-Publishing

Publishing your book is like remodeling your house: you can be Bob the Builder, doing all the jobs yourself —permitting, electrical, plumbing, drywall, framing, painting—or you can hire a general contractor who hires and oversees all the sub-contractors. The first tack is cheaper but requires learning a lot of

Who Knew...

… that self-publishing was so complicated? I guess everyone who’s ever done it. I’m buried in info about IngramSparks, Amazon-Createspace, Aerio, publsiher discounts, ebooks & paperbacks. And it ain’t cheap.

OK, OK, I'll do it myself

I’ve decided to self-publish Losing Normal. I whined here and on Facebook about the turn-downs and unresponsiveness of many agents and got a reply from an author friend to the effect of: “Keep trying. I got 19 rejections.” I was too ashamed to tell her how many rejections I

Agent whining, pt. 2

More agencies are using 3rd-party apps like Query Manager to handle queries. Instead of sending an email query, a writer fills out a form. This is good because you get a receipt showing your query’s been received. But of course no human has actually seen it. You can check

Whining about agents

I get it. agencies get hundreds, maybe thousands of queries every week. Everybody thinks his/her book is the greatest thing. I share that opinion  about my book, LOSING NORMAL. My problem: more and more agencies are choosing not to respond to queries. Used to be, a querier would get

Whoo-hoo again

Another request for a full MS of Losing Normal. I queried the agent at 10:30AM, got the request at 11AM. Cool. This is request number 4, or possibly 4.2, since I queried an agent with 10 pages, and the agent later requested fifty pages.

More language stuff I love (from Huffpost): 

We use the abbreviations “tbsp” for tablespoon, “ft” for foot, “yd” for yard. Why “lb” for pound? Because the abbreviation comes from the Latin word “libra.” In Roman times, the word libra referred to balance or scales. It was also part of a unit of measurement ― libra pondo, which has

Our Next Meeting

The Desert Writers Guild will meet Thursday, March 1, 2018, from 1:30 to 4 PM at Lutheran Church of the Desert, 6336 Hallee Rd, Joshua Tree, CA 92252.Visitors are always welcome, and if you’ve written something (short story, novel, poem, screenplay) you’d like to share, bring

My first published writing (since a long time ago)

Cholla Needles, a local anthology of short writing–fiction, poetry, essays–published a piece I wrote, “This Is Nothing Like Snakes On A Plane.” I did a reading at a local bookstore to applause and some mild chuckles. I thought it was funnier. You can read it here: https://francismoss.