The Author Guy Blog

25th October 2024.  Hello out there, Welcome back. When I began my author journey a bit over ten years ago, I gave no thought into which genre my first book, and as at turns all, all four of my books, would fall. My indie publisher made the decision for me, and I’m pleased and proud that I’m comfortably nestled in the Romance genre in the manner of Nicolas Sparks to whom I’ve been favorably compared by readers and professional reviewers. While I’m flattered by the comparison to Sparks, we differ markedly in that I write to convey realistic lives of flawed Christian characters. I don’t shy away from sensitive topics like intimacy, infidelity and terminal illness, addressing them with believable tension and suspense but without profanity or explicit descriptions. Being slotted in the Romance genre is advantageous in several ways. Few men write what I write, which engenders a degree of uniqueness in a crowded field of aspiring or emerging authors of fiction. But the biggest advantage,...

16th October 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. Last week, I whined a little bit about the elongated timeline before my next book will be released. Okay, maybe more than a little bit. But I’m over it, and moving on in a different direction with my writing. My fifth novel, working title For the Love of Charley Chaplain , is with the publisher, but given what I now understand to be their timelines, it likely won’t be in reader’s hands until the end of next year. So, all things considered, I’m way ahead of the game and I’ve satisfied my two-book commitment when I signed an exclusive contact. Sometimes things that appear disappointing can in fact work out nicely. Here’s how. In my considerable (and on-going) research into the publishing industry over the past ten years, I’ve found ample evidence that reading for relaxation, entertainment and/or escapism – the hallmarks of fiction reader motivation – has diminished down to about, on average, thirty minutes a day. Couple that with the sea c...

11th October 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. I read a sign somewhere sometime that said: “I want patience … and I want it now!” That’s how I felt a few weeks ago when my new publisher, with whom I enthusiastically signed an exclusive contract last December, informed me it will most likely be next summer (18 months later) before the new version of my award-winning book Blue by You will be released. My sense of urgency is two-fold. First, last week I celebrated my seventh-fifth birthday and the sand in my hourglass seems to be falling more rapidly with each passing year. I reckon I’d feel different if it were instead my forty-fifth. Second, and more important, from a commercial standpoint I’ll I’ve been at a standstill, out of business in terms of marketing for those same eighteen months. I consulted with my wise and experienced marketing expert who lives in the high desert of Oregon, and we concluded this could be a good thing, indeed. More time for us to plan our “launch” – you kn...

4th October 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. Today I rise in defense of my home state of Kentucky, of which I’m extremely proud and where all five of my novels, four published and one yet-to-be-released, are set in whole or in part. Recently there have been well-publicized exchanges about the “image” of Kentucky and its residents between our current (and one of the nation’s most popular) governor, Andy Beshear, and one of the two men in competition to become vice-president of the United States – a man who claims ties to the Bluegrass State yet represents neighboring Ohio in the Senate. I met Beshear last week, and I have to say, I was every bit as impressed as I’d anticipated. The other, less so, and we’ve never met. The other man wrote a bestselling book entitled Hillbilly Elegy, an unflattering and partially untruthful portrayal (yes, I read the book and disliked it immensely) of Kentucky and people who call it home. How easy it is to cast dispersions again and again as this man ...