Louise Wise (also writes as T E Kessler): The Fall of the Misanthrope by Louise Wise

From Louise Wise

Showing posts with label The Fall of the Misanthrope by Louise Wise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Fall of the Misanthrope by Louise Wise. Show all posts

Friday, 21 September 2012

FREE chick lit! Shame about the blurb!


by 
Louise Wise


Some writers hate writing the synopsis while others hate the editing. Me? I detest the blurb. Unlike the synopsis you have to make it exciting! Make it sound like it's full of exclamation marks without using them! That's how one writer advised me once, anyway!

OK, I'll stop using them now. 

The Fall of the Misanthrope: I bitch therefore I am is only obtainable on Kindle at the moment, but soon it will be made available as a paperback. And that means I want my blurb to be perfect (I can easily change my Kindle doc.).

Here are my chosen blurbs:

Available at the following:
Amazon.UK
Amazon.com
(1) Welcome to the dark side of chick lit. (Love this bit! Will keep this.)
Valerie Anthrope is a woman not on the edge, but in an abyss. Love and friendship have become memories, and are numbed in her heart. (A bit Mills and Boon?) And that's fine with her. She doesn’t want to disturb them, because awakened, people die. (Sounds like a horror novel!)
Valerie doesn’t know it but her heart is about to thaw and her curse is about to erupt. 

(2)
Valerie is trapped in an abyss of unhappy memories. She is a woman on the edge and most people are happy for her to stay there. Everyone is doing just fine without her. But when she begins to thaw, and the terrible secrets surface, her world is changed forever. Do you still want to be her friend? (Short and sweet, but does it sound like chick lit? Hmm, not sure.)
Welcome, to the dark side of chick lit... (so love this bit.)

(3) Valerie’s life fell apart a long time ago, the crux of her, like a mismatched jigsaw, is pieced together in a vacuum of independence and self-preservation so strong no-one is brave enough to see that it is all an act. (OMG! A little bit Wuthering Heights, dontcha think?)
Love and friendship remain memories; buried in her subconscious. She can’t disturb them, because unearthed, people die. (Maybe I should write horror?)
Lex Kendal is prepared for the consequences, but will it unleash Valerie’s curse?
Welcome, to the dark side of chick lit. (Told you I loved this bit!)

(4)  How fragile is the human mind? Nurture or nature? What makes us us? (A bit documentaryish?)
Valerie Anthrope is a cut-throat business woman and happy being alone. She answers to no-one. She’s The Boss. (Oooh, if I hadn’t of written this book, I’d have bought it because of that line! How clever am I!)
But enter Ellen in the guise of her fairy godmother wanting to make the world rosy and smelling of marshmallow. (Marshmallow? Maybe not so clever, after all!) How can Valerie cope with this burst of sunshine? It gets worse, Ellen has a nephew who’s equally chirpy, but he thinks it’s Valerie taking advantage of Ellen and sets out to take her down a peg or two! (Better. But where’s the ‘welcome to the dark side of chick lit’ gone? Should I keep it?)

(5)  Follow The ‘fall’ (see, what I did there? Clever? Stupid?) of the Misanthrope. A dark chick lit (got the ‘dark’ back in) that's filled with humour and warmth, and heart-wrenching moments of heartache when she discovers her heart can be thawed. 
Valerie lost everything she cared about years ago, and she keeps on losing those she loves. Not any more. Valerie is so determined to never to feel that emotional pain again that she vows never to fall in love. Ever.

(6)  Valerie Anthrope lives alone, and works alone. She is a bitch that no one wants to be around, and that suits her fine. B
ut busybody, Ellen, is watching her and wants to ‘mend’ Valerie. In fact, she makes it her mission. She thinks she’s a struggling broker for Sunny Oak Brokerage and coerces her rich nephew into buying insurance. But nephew Lex wants Valerie to become another notch on his bedpost.
While Valerie brings Lex down a peg or three, Lex teaches Valerie that life is for the living. Only neither Lex nor Ellen realise that Valerie is cursed, and the very reason that she is a bitch is that it keeps people from dying. (Too long? Not chick littey enough?)

(7)   Welcome, to the dark side of chick lit. (Yay!)
Being a misanthropist is Valerie Anthrope’s defence.
She is a cut-throat business woman and happy being alone. She answers to no-one. She has no time for romantic trivialities, and definitely no time for Ellen who nominates herself as her fairy godmother. (I like! Think I’m getting the hang of this now!)
But what of Ellen’s playboy nephew? The one who Ellen coerces into buying insurance from Valerie’s brokerage? The one who is full of himself and smitten with Valerie’s cool demeanour. His cocky know-it-all manner, posse of female admirers and playboy reputation are more than enough to put Valerie off – or is it enough to keep her interested? After all, being in a relationship with a playboy means there’s no burden of commitment.
Or is there?

Anyway, The Fall of the Misanthrope: I bitch therefore I am is FREE this weekend 21st – 24th September. But in the meant time, if you’ve any suggestions for the blurb…?

Sunday, 1 July 2012

July's discussions will be...

social media


June over already? You sure? Crikey, I blinked and missed it, I reckon!

OK folks, the theme for July is social media.


Social media is important for writers, but what’s your favourite?  Is it Twitter that floats your boat? If it is, how on earth do you reach out to people when you need followers? What about LinkedIn, has anyone fallen in love with that seemingly lost tool? Is it lost?

Google Plus+ is new and seems a mix of Twitter and FB, and what of Facebook itself? It’s full of people’s photos of their kids, isn’t it? Have you tried Triberr? My Space? DevianArt? Live Journal, Tagged, Orkut, Badoo, Ning… just how many are there? 

What about Pinterest? Pinning pictures to virtual boards? What's the point of that? 

Just how do you juggle your time connecting and building the author platform?

These are just some of the questions we will be talking about. I have a few spare slots because of authors dropping out so if anyone wants to get in on the discussion...? Well, email me and let's talk!

Among the social media chats I'd like to introduce you to a new paranormal author Fiona Mayne who will be spotlighting her new book - The Curse of Fin Milton - - A Spooky Ghost Story and Supernatural Romance. Sounds good, right? And I'll be interviewing Serena Fairfax about her novel Where the Bulbul Sings and finding out about her writing routine.

See you then! 

Wednesday, 27 June 2012

When reviews count for nothing.


An article by Cindy McDonald


Confession: 


When Louise emailed me the topic of discussion for this blog as “sock puppets” I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about! 


Sock puppets? Sock puppets? 


Did she mean the puppets that my kindergarten teacher used to make out of her husband’s old worn-out tube socks to help her tell the class a nap-time story? I was most fond of Shari Lewis’ little sock, Lamb Chop—she was an adorable sock puppet—her little curly ears and long lashes and cutesy little lamb voice. Hmmm…somehow I was having a difficult time believing that the sock puppets from my childhood were what Ms. Wise was referring to…and with a little digging, a little Googling, I soon discovered that I was right. Nope, Louise was not interested in a blog about Lamb Chop—maybe some other time.


Please note: This lamb is a stand-in.
The original Lamb Chop isn't available for promo shots. 

Hokay, call me naive or uninformed but I didn’t realize that authors creating anonymous profiles on such sites as amazon and goodreads to write glowing reviews about their book was a problem. However as I read the forums, it soon became apparent that I was uninformed…naĂŻve. 


But is it really a problem? 

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Do “Sock Puppets” Have No Shame?


An article by MK McClintock


Apparently I’m further behind in the lingo that I had originally thought, because when someone first mentioned sock puppets to me, I immediately thought about the silly diversion that adults use for kids when nothing else seems to work. I couldn’t have been further off from what the person had meant, so I did a little checking around online for the term (as used in the writing world) and came across these definitions in the online Urban Dictionary:

1. Sock Puppet
An account made on an internet message board, by a person who already has an account, for the purpose of posting more-or-less anonymously.

2. Sock Puppet
1: A fake personality, usually a 'friend' or 'sister,' created by a drama queen/king for the sake of defending him/herself against others in an online forum.

These definitions may lack eloquence, but both are straight to the point. The influx of books on the market, especially those by self-published authors have made it difficult for readers to weed out the genuinely good books from the bad. Readers go online to read reviews in order to help determine if they’d like to read a book. They’re thrilled to see a book with only five-star ratings and with a click, they buy it. They wait anxiously as it loads onto their eReader or arrives in the mail. Two chapters in and they’re wondering if they purchased the right book. One third of the way through and they’re thinking they wasted their money. Halfway through they’re angry because they feel deceived . . . and if they make it further than that, they’re probably going to go online and write a scathing one-star review telling the world how much they disliked the book and how they can’t believe they wasted good money and how everyone who gave it five-stars was lying. Sound familiar?

This is a concern which has arisen often lately and from what I’ve observed, it ends up leading to disgraceful communications between authors and readers. It brings out the worst in the online community and etiquette is thrown out the window in order for the respective parties to defend their ratings.

So, what should be a place for readers to read genuinely honest and fair reviews, has become a place where deceit makes book-buying a walking-on-eggshells experience. Readers don’t want to get stuck with a rotten book – so who are they supposed to trust?

Luckily, not everyone is a so-called “sock puppet” and honest reviews can be found, but unfortunately readers may have to dig a little. I have my own little rule of thumb for reviews. First, I bypass the five star reviews and head straight for the one-stars and work my way up. Unfortunately this can take a little time and mine is precious, so I only do this for books that truly interest me. If a book has only four and five star reviews, I read these carefully to determine if the reviews are written by legitimate readers (one can often tell my looking at that reviewers other reviews). Another good rule of thumb – I never purchase a book where the author has gone online to comment on every mediocre or poor review they receive.

So what  do you do when you’ve been duped by a “sock puppet”? Should you take that as your cue to write one of those one-star reviews defaming the book in every possible way? I believe there’s a fair and civilized way to go about it. If a reader is determined to make a point, why not try first to contact the author directly and mention that you feel these “sock puppet” reviews have been posted and before you write your own review revealing it, would the author like the chance to remove those reviews?

This is where you should screech to a halt! What if the reviews are genuine? How can a reader be certain? Ouch – this one is tough. Gut instinct? Super brain powers? It’s a tough call, but many readers make it every day.

So readers, there’s a civilized way to leave a comment, good or bad, and it doesn’t hurt to be professional online, no matter how personal the comment is.

Authors – This doesn’t mean you should never comment on a review, but other than to say “Thank You” to a kind blogger who read and posted a genuine review for you, it’s best to leave the comments to the readers. If you want to review your own book, let the readers know what you’re doing and identify yourself. It will go a long way with trust.

“Sock Puppets” – You’re out there, but readers are catching on and they’re watching for you. Your next book could be the one they don’t buy.


It’s not worth it.



McClintock is an entrepreneur, baker, photographer, tour host, reviewer, and multi-genre author. She was born on the west coast, but after less than eight years she left with her family to the Rocky Mountains. After more adventures around the country, business college, and culinary school, McClintock found a place to call home in Montana.
Over the years McClintock traveled the country and visited magnificent Scotland. She dreams of a time when life was simpler, the land rougher, and the journey more rewarding. With her heart deeply rooted in the past and her mind always on adventure, McClintock will always call Montana home.




Links
Gallagher’s Pride Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/4VE6VFSf1LA


Tuesday, 19 June 2012

Welcome to the dark side of chick lit...

Being a misanthropist is Valerie Anthrope’s defence.

Amazon.UK
Amazon.com
She is a cut-throat business woman and happy being alone. She answers to no-one. She has no time for romantic trivialities, and definitely no time for Ellen who nominates herself as her fairy godmother.
But what of Ellen’s playboy nephew? The one who Ellen coerces into buying insurance from Valerie’s brokerage? The one who is full of himself and smitten with Valerie’s cool demeanour. His cocky know-it-all manner, posse of female admirers and playboy reputation are more than enough to put Valerie off – or is it enough to keep her interested? After all, being in a relationship with a playboy means there’s no burden of commitment.

Or is there?

The Fall of the Misanthrope is available for Kindle NOW


Chapter One 
The Fall of the Misanthrope
I bitch, therefore I am

Featured post

If you like #syfy #alien #romance books check out this extract from EDEN

Excerpt from the book  Eden by Louise Wise Dizziness swamped her. Then sunlight fell on her in a burst of fresh, cold air as...