This is huge news for indie authors. Amazon is now allowing pre-orders to be made on indie-published books. For a long time, Amazon held out on this, despite competitors taking the leap months ago.

This means that you can pre-order an indie pubbed book when a release date is set, and it will be delivered on release day.

I love how this is a great time to be a writer.

Today, I feel like I’m channeling Joe Pesci in the movie, “MY COUSIN VINNY.”

His argument scene concerning Grits in the South is hysterical, and right now I have a few more lines of dialogue I would add. See, I have another series coming out this fall (Book #1 – NO GRITS, NO GLORY, releases in early October) and I want to have grits incorporated on the book cover somehow.

Only grits are not very photogenic. Even if they are, they are at the wrong angle for my graphic designer to use them. So here I sit, cussing out grits as I search. I can just hear Joe Pesci’s tone as he would say the following:

* Why aren’t there any photogenic grits out there on the Internet?

* Are these vampire grits that don’t allow themselves to be photographed?

* Exactly what would make a great photo of a grit?

And more…

Look for #30DaysofGritsRecipes starting on 9/1. It’s the gear up to the book release in early October.

For now, I’ll leave you with a photo I took of grits (that of course won’t work…see Joe Pesci rant once more!)

People ask me all the time, “Where do your story ideas come from?”

My answer? “Everywhere.”

That’s partially true. But ideas are like ingredients in a big recipe that all work together. They have to marinate with each other and occasionally you toss in some of that spiced pepper “just because” you wanted to see how it would flavor the soup.

Many news stories, particularly the ridiculous ones like those mentioned in the Huffington Post, are complete fodder for fiction ideas. So is any kind of special on the History, Nature, News channels on TV.

Someone mentioned there is a place on Earth where there is a higher population of twins than anywhere else. This is a documented fact. Take that bit of info and see how many places you can go with it!

1. Is there something in the water?

2. Is there a supernatural phenomena going on?

3. Is there a hidden ancient culture of people who produce twins? What happens when the twins grow up? Are they stronger than anyone else in their village?

And you just keep adding, flavoring, marinating until a storyline starts to form.

More tomorrow!

I woke up this morning to an email from Amazon. They wrote a letter to all indie authors who publish via their program, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

You can read the letter here.

In a nutshell, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like Amazon & Hachette are kindergarten rivals playing in the sandbox, and each one refuses to share. What’s weirder is that KDP authors have nothing to do with this rivalry. We want customers & readers to be the ones who drive the market price up or down.

I don’t doubt that this will be a long journey, but for now, this gal is staying away from the sandbox.

Some weeks, all we can say is, “Thank God It’s Friday!”

This is one of those weeks. Hope everyone has a great weekend!