Progress Report #2

This weekend is the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in, wait for it, San Francisco. There will be lots of seminars on writing, publishing, editing, bragging, and begging for an opportunity to flog your book or at least an idea for a book. Many will come, few will leave completely happy. Such is the nature of these events, but if you don’t try you don’t know what you will have missed. I remember an old marketing adage that went something like this, “You can’t sell to a customer who doesn’t know your product.” These conferences are places to find customers and show your product.

Other projects:

I’m finishing the last edits on the movie book trailer for Containers 4 Death. I like it and hope you will too; I will post it on next week’s blog and on YouTube. Dennis De Rose and I have finished the editing of the manuscript, Dennis is a champ and hardworking; he was done in two weeks and even gave it a second read with follow-up corrections. Again I recommend Dennis to every writer, remember it’s your content but he can help make it right. Thanks Dennis.

I have rolled the manuscript into InDesign for the first pass at formatting the book, 275 pages. The cover is below right at the bottom of the column. I’m still aiming for a mid-March roll-out with April 1 as the publishing date; ebook and pbook both.

The Next Chronicle

WWIII 4 Death (still the working title) has slowed a bit from the initial surge, but only because paying work has inconveniently gotten in the way, but a writer has to eat. The book is constantly with me in my head. I am continuing to read a number of books on World War II focusing on the stolen art treasures by the Nazi’s and Hitler. Through his partners in this unbelievable period in history, Hitler stole millions of art objects, books, and paintings. Even as Paris was being attacked by the Allies, he gave priority to trains to haul his loot out of town, even over the need for his own troops to escape. I am also reading about the foot soldiers and the deadly obstacles and conditions they faced.

Books I recommend:

            The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter (incredible)

            Visions from a Foxhole by William A. Foley Jr.

            Foot Soldier for Patton by Michael Bilder (amazing story of luck and survival)

The reason for this research is a better understanding for the first chapter which kicks off in Germany at the end of the war. This will provide the back-story for the rest of the book.

Still working on the story and overall structure, I am comfortable with where I am at the moment - should meet the March 15 date for the outline. Developing the character profiles (as I said last week if you are interested in my Character Profile Excel spreadsheet let me know in comments), helps to put a history to the face of the players in the story.

More later . . .