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Category Archives: Writing
Goodreads Giveaway Gone and the Review Question
On Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 12:00 AM, the two-book Goodreads Giveaway for Pilot Error ended with a total of 640 members (out of a total 6 million) entered to win. That’s a tiny percentage, even when considering that the Giveaway was restricted to US members. That may sound as if I care, which I don’t, and I’m disappointed, which I’m not, because the important point is that Goodreads provides the opportunity to put a book in front of a whole lot of folks who love to read books, review them, and share with others what they are reading and reviewing. … Continue reading
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News Release
BooksOnBoard Reveals This Week’s Bestselling US Authors and eBooks WEBWIRE – Monday, January 09, 2012 One Cold Night, a crime thriller by Katia Lief–who also writes as Katia Spiegelman and Kate Pepper–made its way onto BooksOnBoard’s US Bestsellers list after debuting on the UK Bestsellers list last week. “Though it is still not commonplace, an increasing number of authors who choose the route of self- or indie-publishing are making a mark on ebook bestsellers lists” said Bob LiVolsi, founder and CEO of BooksOnBoard. “Katia Lief, Tosh McIntosh and Nina Croft are prime examples.” Tosh McIntosh’s thriller Pilot Error and Nina … Continue reading
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The Indie Wars – Reviews and the Four Horsemen
I belong to the Novel-In-Progress Group (NIP) of Austin, which has the distinction of being the oldest surviving writers’ conclave in the city. Eight-plus years of participation have taught me many things, the most basic of which is that the creative cocoon surrounding a writer’s desk is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, in that it’s a marvelous environment to gift your imagination with free reign to transport you far away into new worlds of your own making. A curse, in that if you never force yourself to leave, your words become chiseled in granite and gilded with … Continue reading
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How About This For A Review?
I suppose it can be said that any book review written by a friend of the author is suspect from the git-go. Especially if that friend is a writer, and even more especially if the two writers have reviewed each other’s books. Think that if you will, but if you take the time to read this review of Pilot Error written by David Mignery, (JT Conroe, author of Blue Hotel), I think you may well agree that this is an honest assessment from a reader who enjoyed the novel and didn’t have to make up something to say about it. … Continue reading
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BooksOnBoard Link Status
I apologize for the inconvenience, especially if you are visiting due to interest in my novel Pilot Error, but the BooksOnBoard links here and on the companion site toshmcintosh.com/piloterror are temporarily inoperative. As of this writing at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, November 18th, we are anticipating resolution of the problem before the end of the day. That’s the bad news, at least from my perspective. The good news is that the emailers and author suite publicity campaigns are being held in abeyance until the “not available” status of my novel (and a few others in the same predicament) is removed. … Continue reading
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The Time Has Finally Come . . .
In the Blogbook section of this site, I’ve likened blogging to having a shadow. Although at the time I thought about the popular 1927 song, “Me and My Shadow,” the lyrics don’t fit very well . . . Me and my shadow/Strolling down the avenue Me and my shadow/Not a soul to tell our troubles to . . . And when it’s twelve o’clock/We climb the stair, We never knock/For nobody’s there . . . Just me and my shadow/All alone and feelin’ blue . . . . . . and the reason is simple: the blogging shadow is like … Continue reading
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Indie Publishing – Another Guy’s Book
Okay, so if you’ve visited my blog in the past and peeked into the Writer’s Desk Logbook, you probably have read all you care to know about my struggles in the Query Wars and the recent departure from the front lines to independently publish my novel Pilot Error. If that’s the case, you can relax and continue reading. Please glance at the title again if that statement is confusing. A good friend and fellow writer (I’ll refer to him as Another Guy, or AG) is also an illustrator, which is where the fellowship stops. On second thought, that didn’t come out quite … Continue reading
Bye-Bye Legacy, Hello Indie
When I first began the task of writing a novel, I didn’t think much about the kind of ending I wanted. A tragedy would be too depressing. Fairy tales didn’t interest me. Somewhere in between those extremes lay a far more satisfying possibility, best described as bittersweet: adjective: (of food, drink, or flavor) sweet with a bitter aftertaste; (of memories) arousing pleasure tinged with sadness or pain. Neither of these definitions apply directly to storytelling, but writers borrow words and re-define them to suit their purposes because they are wordsmiths. See? I did it again with blacksmith: noun: a person … Continue reading
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Proofing the Proof
I’ve read that proofreading a manuscript is best done with a printed copy rather than on a computer screen. The reason has to do with the way in which the eye-brain connection handles the task of processing the words, and that it’s easier to catch errors when they are on paper. Over the years of toil with my novel, I’ve generally not bought into that theory, primarily because in practical terms my experience didn’t validate it. A far more relevant factor in determining the effectiveness of a self-edit seemed to be familiarity. I’ve read every sentence in one version or … Continue reading
Indie News – A Special Kind of Thrill
So you’re a writer, and you’ve had this dream of being published. Maybe it began years ago and took a while to gain enough traction for you to sit down and begin putting the words to electronic paper. But you finally do, and quickly discover that you had no clue how hard it was going to be. And then one day all the false starts, multiple revisions, doubt, and frustration fade into history as you gaze at the last page of a story that works. And it feels really, really good. Now it’s nothing more than a matter of finding … Continue reading
