Jade Varden Official Blog

If you wrote a book about wizards when Harry Potter came out, a vampire story when Twilight became a movie and a dystopian action drama most recently, you're not a slave to inspiration...you're being way too trendy. Authors are terminally uncool...so it's really just best not to try to keep up with the tide of public favor.  I'm a Barbie Girl Everyone loves a fad, and I'm no exception. I turn certain movies into full-blown events . I consider myself to be pretty fashionable and trendy...but I don't try to follow book trends. For one thing, they come and go too quickly. By the time I started considering writing a book about wizardry, Twilight was already the next big thing. And before I even had the chance to consider writing a vampire book, it was all about The Hunger Games .  But even that isn't a good enough reason not to follow trends . You only really need one: you should be writing what you want to write. If you've ever started a no...

When you write, you're doing it alone. It follows that if you can't embrace loneliness...you can't really be a writer. My World There are times when the world is only me and the screen right in front of me, a scrolling marquee of black text that just keeps getting longer and longer with each new thought that enters my head. Writing is a very self-involved experience. The real world goes away as you sink deeper and deeper into the one you're creating. And that gets lonely. As a writer, you can get lonely even if you're writing in a room surrounded by people. It's just you and the screen. Sometimes, that's great. You're in the zone and you're typing and it's all flowing well. Other times, it's terrifying. The white screen is staring at you, mocking you, taunting you. You are alone with the screen. You're on your own with the plot, the characters, every twist and turn. Perhaps you have someone to bounce your ideas off of, bu...

Amazon, B&N and lots of traditional booksellers have opened the door for indie authors to publish and market their work...but in these bookstores, indies have to compete with traditionally-published authors. Libiro, a new ebook store, will allow indies to enjoy more even odds. Knocking Down the Door Libiro was created by self-published author Ben Galley and Teague Fullick, a designer.  The website "devotes its shelf-space entirely to self-published and small press titles," Galley told Forbes . Galley wants to eliminate the stigma that surrounds self-published books "because it simply isn't true. Libiro, being a purely indie store, can showcase the indie market...We want to create our own bestsellers." And for authors who want to publish on the site, there's another perk: 80 percent royalty. Regardless of your book's length or price, this is the standard. The store is pretty new, and still rough around the edges. Users are...

Halloween is approaching, and to me that means one thing: time for scary movies. Some of the best scary movies were books before they were film. One of my favorites is Along Came a Spider , the novel that launched a 19-book (and counting) career for literary detective Alex Cross.  The Book James Patterson published Along Came a Spider in 1993, introducing the world to Alex Cross. Cross is a detective with the Washington, D.C. police force and a forensic psychologist. How good is the book that introduced him? Along , so far, has launched 18 sequels, a film adaptation and millions of fans. At the start of the story, Alex is investigating three horrific murders. The stakes are raised when two prominent students, Maggie Rose Dunne and Michael Goldberg, are kidnapped by math teacher Gary Soneji. Cross is ordered to investigated the high-profile kidnappings, which enrages him because the world seems more interested in the disappearance of two rich white children than ...

Every author knows that pacing is an important aspect of every book. When events occur very quickly, it creates a sense of action and excitement. ...Or, it makes the book feel rushed. So if you're writing with a fast pace, you have to ask yourself: is it action-packed, or is it rushed?  Double Time Timing and pacing will make or break a book. You can use your words to make time feel as though it's passing slowly, or very quickly, in your story. When scenes are thick and heavy and events are occurring very rarely, time will feel as though it's passing slowly. When events are happening much more frequently and sentences are short and to the point, everything feels fast. Many writers use this technique to create action scenes, and drive the pace forward quickly in order to excite readers. But when it's not done well, it just makes the book feel rushed. There's a very fine line between writing great action and dragging readers across the pages of your st...

I make to-do lists and write reminders for even the most mundane tasks. If I didn't, I wouldn't have electricity or any food to eat because I would forget to do it all. I have to put everything on my lists, and cross items off those lists, as each day progresses. I like to try and do things at the same time every day, so it's easier to maintain some sort of order. I've even caught myself putting "work on the book" on my list...and on those days, I get maybe one good paragraph written.  You can't make yourself be creative. Storytelling isn't something that you can command at will. And I would know...because I've tried. On My Watch When you're an indie author, you're also a lot of other things. If you're like me, you've got a ton of things to do in any given day: drink copious amounts of coffee, exercise, clean, work, write, blog...spend lots of time on Twitter. If you work down a list to check all those items off, event...

In my "day job," I used to write advice articles for freelance writers, and I constantly cautioned them against undervaluing themselves. As a freelance writer, you have to set a minimum price and refuse to waver (unless the economy crashes, but that's a whole different issue). As an indie author, freebies are your bread and butter. You can't possibly undervalue yourself or give enough books away for free. What I'm saying is this: never, ever shy away from giving out freebies. Free Milk Homespun wisdom dictates that you should never give anything away for free. Do so, and why would anyone end up buying it?  But that's just not how it works with books; it's never how it has worked with books. What's the most-read, most-sold, most-known book in the United States? The Bible. It's given away for free all the time, and you can find copies of it in every hotel and church pew in the nation. Yet it also sells more copies every single year. Cle...

You know how people always tell you "just be yourself" when it comes to any sticky situation? That doesn't apply to self-published authors. In fact, here's much better advice for the indie writer: don't be yourself. Don't be yourself at all.  What "Be Yourself" Really Means Everyone makes decisions and forms opinions every day. Some people use all sorts of different criteria when they're deciding what to read -- and the author's personal history and beliefs aren't at all off-limits. I stumbled across a Goodreads thread not too long ago where one reader stated they wouldn't purchase a certain author's books, because of something they'd done or said . Unless you specifically write politically- or religiously-toned books, readers don't need to know where you stand on the issues, how you vote or what you think happens to us when we die. Your personal opinions on the President, war and other matters a...