Jade Varden Official Blog

Do your characters wait for about an hour, or a hour? Does it make a difference that the word hour is pronounced without its H? Should I write that my books delve deeply into a history of a very deceitful family, or an history? Are you treating H like a vowel...and do you know any of the answers? Why I Hate Words That Start with H You might think every letter in the alphabet is equal, that all 26 of them are totally benign. The truth is, some of those letters are actually ticking time bombs -- and they may have already detonated inside your book. If you think Y is a tricky letter, you've never gone 10 rounds with the letter H. The problem with H is that sometimes it audibly shows up to the word party, announcing itself loudly and proudly. Other times, it sneaks in with other letters uninvited. Before you know it, H has spiked the punch, set the carpet on fire and done who-knows-what to get A all bent out of shape. There goes your word party...now you're just breaking ...

I write a lot about grammar in my writing 101 posts, because it's always difficult. There are tons of rules in the English language, and they're pretty easy to forget. Every indie author has to proofread and edit their own work to make sure it's perfect, but it can't hurt to get a second opinion. Why can't that second opinion be a website? Check Your Grammar Online  If you're not sure about a certain sentence or a certain passage in your book, and it's something I haven't already covered in one of my writing 101 posts, an online grammar checker can provide a simple, quick spot-check. There are several of them online, not all of them free, but I like this one best. You simply highlight the text you're unsure about with your mouse, copy it, then paste it directly into the blank box on the site. The corrected text will appear in the second blank box, just beneath the first. Words that have been changed will be underlined in both passages. It...

Traditional authors definitely have the edge on indie book writers. Their books are put in print as well as digital editions, and their books are available in book stores and libraries. But the gap between indies and traditionals is getting smaller and smaller all the time. With kindlegraph , indies don't even need to put their books on paper to give away signed copies of their work.  eSignatures What goes perfectly with an ebook? An esignature from the author, of course. If writers can sign their paper copies, why can't you sign electronic copies of your work? Kindlegraph says you can, and I'm fascinated by the service.  Getting started is amazingly easy. Simply go to the site and sign in with your Twitter account. Look for the blue author sign up link at the bottom of the page, and get your Kindlegraph account all set up. The system may not recognize your name immediately, so you'll probably have to manually add your books. Doing so is quite easy; you jus...

 Lisa Orchard contacted me about writing a review for The Super Spies and the Cat Lady Killer , and I'm glad she did. It's a fun mystery read for kids, but even though it's peppered with pop culture references and lots of humor that will definitely appeal to the age group, Orchard knows how to be dark. Fear, suspense, thrills, jokes -- it's all here. I'm definitely not in Orchard's target audience, but I absolutely enjoyed this book. The formatting and justification are perfect, always an important point, and I had to search hard to find a single mistake in the entire book. At no point does the story feel slow, and I wasn't even tempted to stop reading before the final page. I very much enjoyed the main character Sarah, who is brave to a fault when she's seeking justice; Jackie, the fiercely loyal fashionista; and Lacey, the loveable klutz with a big heart...and two left feet. Together, they form the Super Spies, a group which soon includes...

 Good ebook formatting doesn't begin after you type the end of your story, it starts the moment you open the blank document to begin. I've talked about good manuscript formatting in the past, and it's pretty straightforward. But, if you really want to make it easy, there is another option: ebook templates. eBook Templates  Instead of formatting a blank document, you can always download an ebook template online instead. The template will have everything you need to write a book, and some things you might not: title page, dedication page, the text of the book itself, an "about the author" at the end. The best I've found are the CreateSpace templates offered by Amazon. They're downloadable in .doc format, the most common word processing software, and they're free. Using a template is extremely easy. After you download the template you want, access it from your downloads folder (or wherever it is) and start putting your text into the template. Us...

At last, I'm prepared to announce a release date for Death (Deck of Lies, #3). And since I've waited so long about making the announcement, another piece of good news: you don't have much of a wait. Death will be officially released on July 1, and I hear everyone in the U.S. is going to be setting off fireworks just three days later to celebrate (just a little nationwide soiree I whipped up in advance for your viewing enjoyment). But...I'm not going to make you wait for the prologue. Go to my website right now, and you can download everything up to Chapter 1 right this very second -- just be advised that it's not a very long prologue. Death is the longest book in the series to date, and yes , many things will at last be solved. You will know who killed whom, and why, and you will find even more lies hiding inside this installment of the Deck of Lies. You'll meet new characters, you'll find old characters and you'll even find out how Rain cele...

After much re-reading and re-editing, tweaking and margin-moving, I am pleased to announce that the first two books in the Deck of Lies series are available in paperback -- with full back covers, and all! Just a little something for the reading purists out there. I'll also be releasing Death and Judgment to paperback when they're published (more news on Death to follow later). The paperback version of Justice is 152 pages long, and sized to 8.5 x 5.5 -- making it perfect for display at a shelf near you. The paperback version of The Tower is sized to match Justice. It's 160 pages long, which is barely enough room to contain all the many secrets. And if you've decided to go fully digital, you can always get both Justice and The Tower on Kindle, Nook or in any electronic format of your choice at Smashwords.

Let's face it: ereaders are awesome. They're lightweight, they're easy to hold, they can store thousands of books...they totally look like those electronic pads the characters on Star Trek walked around with all the time. I'm practically having a relationship with my Kindle. But if there's anything about reading ebooks that's not-so-awesome, it's the navigation. You can fix all that, and make the best parts of your book more accessible, by including a table of contents. The TOC in the Modern Age Many authors and readers consider the Table of Contents to be a bit of a wasted page in print books. Why tell me the names and location of every chapter, if I'm obviously going to find them while I'm reading anyway? But in the world of ebooks, the TOC is anything but a waste. For navigation's sake alone, you need to include it. In ebooks, each entry in the TOC also acts as a link. Readers can very quickly and easily access a specific chapte...