Jade Varden Official Blog

"This book was amazing." "The story is fast-paced and keeps you hanging on for dear life." The lovely Ariel Avalon has reviewed The Tower at her blog. There are some spoilers , so don't read the review unless you've also read Justice!  While you're at Ariel's blog, check out her reviews of Justice and Death as well.

Even after you learn how to master grammar, punctuation and descriptive language, the self-publishing journey is far from over. You've still got to figure out how to make money as an indie author -- and trust me, it's not easy. The Road to Self-Publishing Success is Paved with Broken Indies You may have an amazing book on your hands, a story so pure and so good it absolutely deserves to be a bestseller. But there are thousands of writers just like you, people who have created truly exceptional work, and we may never learn their names. After you write the book, format the book and self-publish the book, you've got all the easy stuff out of the way. You were born to write stories, weave plots and entertain the masses -- so of course you wrote the book. Actually promoting the damn thing, now that's hard.  And it's where lots of indie authors fail. Too many writers have a dream that they're going to write a book, publish that book and then, magically...

Some authors invent amazing new worlds and rich characters unlike anything readers have ever seen. L. Frank Baum, J. K. Rowling, J. R. R. Tolkein -- these are the greats. But it's not easy to invent an amazing new world; just ask any other author. You don't need to come up with something completely new to be a hit. Some authors have done very, very well with an un-original idea. Let us not forget that Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan fiction. You might be inspired by something old, and end up creating something new. Have you ever thought about writing an unofficial sequel? New Author, Old Story Some authors have taken the work of other authors and added to it, successfully. Alice Randall wrote a book called The Wind Done Gone , a novel based upon Gone With the Wind that was not approved through Margaret Mitchell's estate. The Wind Done Gone is a re-telling of the original tale, this time from the point of view of a slave at Tara. There was some...

"Damn engrossing." "It was simply superb!" Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) has been reviewed at Reading 24/7 . Go check it out before you get your copy of the book!

I once read a romance novel where every single chapter started with a quote from one of William Shakespeare's many works. To really drive the point home, one of the characters in the story was obsessed with the Bard; she, too, quoted him incessantly. Lots of books feature quotes at the start of chapters. I've also seen quotes from poems, songs and other books inside the text itself. Quoting is a great way to pay homage to someone else's work. It's also a great way to get yourself in serious trouble if you're a self-published author. Before you add quotes from songs, poems or other books to anything you're writing, make sure you're doing it without breaking copyright laws.   Copyright Laws I've blogged about using brand names and celebrity names in self-published books in the past, and using song lyrics and other quotes is pretty similar. What I'm saying here is, you can get sued. Since you're not the creator of those lyrics, that ...

 Every book has a setting . Some might be incredibly specific -- a certain house on a certain street inside a certain town in a little hamlet in Scotland. Other settings might be a bit broader. Tony Hillerman, for example, writes exclusively within the Native American reservation spreading across the four corners. This region covers four different states, a huge are filled with canyons, cliffs, mountains and people. No matter where your book is set, it never hurts if readers can picture that setting. Readers want to know where it is, what it looks like and what else is nearby. The best way to show them all of that is to give them a map.  And making maps isn't easy. If it was, we'd all do it. I'm a Writer, Not a Cartographer Like writing isn't already hard enough, right? But sometimes, even the best and most descriptive authors need to add a few visual aids to hep their readers out. If your setting plays a big role in your book, a map is probably the perfec...

Accept and except are spelled differently, but they're pronounced the same. That makes them difficult to write with, a problem that's further complicated by the fact that they have so many different meanings and forms of use. But if you put one in the wrong place in your book, you're going to greatly confuse your readers and totally change your own plots.  Accept Accept basically means to take or to agree . The word can also be used to show a response or an answer ( Sally accepted Luke's invitation to have lunch ). Synonyms for accept include gain, obtain, welcome and acquire. You can also accept a burden or a responsibility, maybe even unwillingly ( I accept blame for all my wrongdoings). It's used in a lot of different ways, and that's what makes it so hard to use properly. In spoken English, accept sounds like another word with a lot of definitions: except . Except Basically, except just means but . A fancier definition for the wo...

"If I could describe this book in one word, it would be EXCITING." "I was left surprised, shocked, and blown away!" The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2) has been reviewed at Little Book Star . Read the review before you get your copy from Amazon, B&N, Smashwords or Kobo. The Tower is also available in paperback!

 I discuss book marketing in my newest interview at Verdict Book Reviews. Go check it out, and feel free to use the comments section to share your own thoughts on book marketing!

Teachers all across the United States whip out The Legend of Sleepy Hollow towards the end of the every October and read the rich, poetic language aloud to the class. It's hard to understand; that why my teachers also showed an animated version of the story. I'm pretty sure the Disney version starred Goofy. The more famous film version of the story, Sleepy Hollow , is even more farfetched than the cartoon.  The Story To be technical, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow isn't a book. It's a short story, and it's so old that you can read the whole thing for free any time (public domain). It was written by Washing Irving, and first published in 1820. Irving is well-known for another short story, Rip Van Winkle . Though Irving wrote them both in England, Sleepy Hollow is considered to be American fiction because it's set in what would become New York state. It takes place in a Dutch settlement named Tarry Town, in an area called Sleepy Hollow. The hero...

"The story seems straightforward, but then it curves and twists so [it] continually surprises." "I really enjoyed going down the rabbit hole with Rain as she discovers secret after secret." The Tower has been reviewed at Quirky Girls Read ! Go and read the whole thing before you buy your copy of the book, and see if you can find the truth in the Deck of Lies.

Clearly, I have strong feelings about the importance of good grammar, proper punctuation and well-crafted writing. But am I wasting my time, and yours, by blogging about it? In a world where word processing software highlights misspellings, underlines bad grammar and comes with a built-in thesaurus, besides, just where exactly do people like me fit in? Why do you need me, if you've got software that does it all for you?   Oh, You Need Me You can't even compose a tweet without getting spelling help nowadays, and every time I screw up during a blog post a helpful red line pops up to guide me. I don't even have to hit backspace and re-type the word; I can just right-click my mouse and magically fix the problem. That's the wonder of technology, and it's easy to grow incredibly complacent (lazy) when it comes to good writing. What's the point of knowing all this grammar garbage when any half-decent software program will do the job on its own?  Because...

I've made it clear that I'm a big fan of staying organized during the writing process. I create outlines, character sheets, the whole ball of wax. But sometimes, you need something more than the standard blank document to keep your plot organized and all your thoughts straight. I'm talking about the joy of templates.  Let's Hear it for Templates! I've advocated using templates to keep your manuscript properly formatted ; this will save you a ton of frustration and time when you convert your work into an ebook-ready format. But templates serve another important function: they can help you keep all your book notes organized.  Plots can get pretty complex, particularly if you've got a lot of characters interacting or a big event happening. I'm usually pretty straightforward when it comes to writing outlines for my stories; in the past, a blank Word document has always been good enough for me. But lately I've been working on a novel that's ...

"Rain's life only becomes more and more turbid , more tangled , more mysterious...an excelent sequel." "Jade Varden has created another EXCELLENT book...with drama, mystery, friendship, self-discovery, redemption and one of my favorite characters." The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2) has been awarded 5/5 stars at Reading...Dreaming. The review is spoiler-free, so feel free to read it at will.

Webster's Dictionary (the standard for American English) contains more than 400,000 entries. That's a whole lot of words for writers to try and track, and it's one of the reasons grammar is so difficult to master. Knowing which word goes where is pretty much impossible -- unless you memorize everything about all 400,000 of those words (including the correct spelling). Know your parts of speech instead, and you'll have an easier time making perfect sentences that won't confuse your readers.  Articles   Technically, there are just two articles in the entire English language: a and the . Sometimes, a turns into an , but they're considered to be the same word (vowels like to confuse everyone). Articles are only used with nouns. A sentence using an article with no noun would look something like this: The blue wandered past. Somewhere inside your head, a voice ought to be screaming the blue what ? That's how you know there's a missing noun.  ...

Death (Deck of Lies, #3) is now available in print! You'll get a full cover and 206 lovely paper pages filled with lies, secrets and conspiracies when you order your copy from Amazon. Praise for Death "Rain continues her quest for the truth - but what truth that is continues to change: her hunt for her identity led to a murder, her hunt for a murderer led her to more of her own secrets... Death delivers a good dose of reflection on the previous rollercoaster of events from Books 1 and 2, whilst continuing to throw up more surprises.... "Deck of Lies is a fantastic YA mystery series, with plenty of twists and fans of soaps like Dallas , Days of Our Lives and Sunset Beach , will love the mad hookups and random family relationship relevations. Jade's writing is style is vivid and concise, helping you to completely immerse yourself in her stories." -author Melanie Cusick-Jones  "Once again I wasn't able to put the series down. I love t...

Most indie authors head straight for Amazon's KDP program when they want to self-publish a book, and for good reason. Amazon is the leader in the ebook market, and their system is incredibly user-friendly. Personally, I don't advocate this -- for formatting reasons, I always advise going to Smashwords first. Some indie authors can't go to Smashwords first, or at all, because of KDP Select. Some indie authors swear by KDP Select; they think it's great. Before you sign up for it, learn the truth about KDP Select, and make sure you know what you're getting into.  What's KDP Select? When you go to Amazon to present your ebook to the world, you're going to find something called KDP Select. This is a special program for indie authors that allows you to run free promotions on your books, and if you spend any amount of time on the Kindle forums you'll learn that many indies love it.  The program certainly has its merits. Listing your book on A...

Some words are so common, we never think twice about using them -- and that's a big problem. Three of the most common words are mixed up and misplaced very often in writing. It's time for that to stop. There's a way to master using their , there and they're , and once you do your grammar will instantly improve.  Their Their is probably the most difficult word in this homonym set, and that's why it's the first one of the group that writers have to master. Right out of the gate, their is hard to spell. It's an ugly word, and defies all spelling logic. In a proper word world, the i would come before the e , the way it ought, and everyone would be happy. Not possible. Their is actually a form of the word they (as if the group wasn't confusing enough), therefore it's got to be spelled with the e first -- according to expert grammarians. The word their is possessive, which means it's always used to denote ownership. It belongs in th...

 "Justice is full of mystery, problems, and drama." "There was always something happening and there is still a lot that needs to be solved." Justice has been reviewed at Pages of Forbidden Love , and I love the review! Go and read the whole thing. Get your free copy of Justice after you enter the giveaway -- just look to the left to find the link!

Some writers find their calling at a young age, and begin scribbling on pages as soon as they can hold a pen. Other writers get that urge, and don't follow it -- maybe because they're afraid, or they're busy, or it just feels too hard to try. One famous writer found that she couldn't ignore the urge any longer, and began writing children's books when other women her age were grandmothers. Good thing she did, or else re-runs would be seriously lacking some seriously good period TV. Laura Ingalls Wilder probably never thought of having her own career. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a pioneer...and none of it left very much time for writing. But she felt the itch that all writers feel, and when she saw her daughter, Rose, making a go of writing Wilder decided she would try it herself. And so she did, and the entire world fell in love with a family that lived in a Little House. Little House, Big Dreams Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born in the wi...

Some books are so good, they can't be adapted only once. They come around again, and again...and again and again. And while I'm not an expert on the book version of Little Women , having read it once and not liking it very much, I am an expert on the various film adaptations that followed -- and I'm about to save you 800 pages of reading. The Book Louisa May Alcott based Little Women on her own home life. Like the character Jo, Louisa had three sisters and lived in her family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. And it is a ponderous book, so big in fact it was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869.  Little Women follows the lives of sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, the March girls, and it was an immediate hit among readers. Margaret March, or Meg, is the oldest and quite a beauty. Meg is a perfect little lady, with a pretty face and pretty manners to match. She is something of a substitute mother to the others, assuming control of the house ...