Fall for the Indie Book Challenge

For an independent author there are 2 steps to selling books. 

1) Letting people know that you have a book out. This frequently involves tweeting, posting on facebook, shouting from roof tops, getting your family and friends to tweet post and/or shout from rooftops, Courting media such as your local paper, book bloggers, and/or pretty much anybody with a megaphone. If you're as lucky as me you also have an adorable 10 year old "publicist" who tells every adult he sees including wait staff, nurses at the doctor's office, car rental agents...that his mom wrote a book and they should really check it out. 

2) Convincing people that it's worth buying and reading. The best way to do that is with REVIEWS. 

It's a simple fact that reviews sell books. Whether they are on Amazon, BN, Goodreads, or book blogs. There is no substitute for readers telling other readers that your book is good. The difficulty is getting people to review your books. 

Sure there are plenty of book "blogs" out there who will allow you to pay them for what they call reviews. These reviews tend to paraphrase the back copy of your book and then gush for about a paragraph. This might serve to get the word out, but discerning readers can tell the difference. As a rule, I don't pay for reviews, nor do I accept payment for reviews. 

I also don't have the marketing and advertising budget to blast ads for my books all over the place. I would contend that most other indie authors don't either. I do however believe in Independent publishing, and indie authors. 

That's why I signed up for the Fall for the Indie Book Challenge. Author, S. Usher Evans proposed this challenge as a way for authors and readers to help each other find quality independent books and celebrate independent publishing and the freedom that writers have when gates are left open. 

Here is how it works:

• Starting September 1st read 1 independent or small press published book each week for 15 weeks. 
• Write reviews on the books you read. You can post them on blogs, Goodreads, your preferred ebook retailer, whatever platform works best for you.

"But, Meredith, I can't read a book every week," you say. That's why it's called a challenge. Personally, I usually read at least a book a week, but there are times when other obligations might slow down that rate. I am trying to write another book after all.  No worries, if you miss a week or two or ten, you are still supporting indie authors even with just one review. 

To communicate with other participants and get or share ideas on what to read, you can join the Fall for the Indie Book Challenge Group on Goodreads. There are threads for discussing and recommending books by genre (They're not all romance.) and even a thread for genre benders like mine. 

If you are a reader: Please join and recommend some of your favorite indie books for others to read. 

If you are an author: Please join and remember to promote others before you promote your own. I would suggest recommending 2 indie books in addition to yours. 

I look forward to seeing everyone's recommendations as well as your reviews and of course I look forward to some great reading ahead. 

The River Maiden is now available!

I've finally done it! Well actually, I did it about two weeks ago. I've been remiss in updating things here because I was also wrapping up another project, which I'll talk about in another post.  However, I am happy to say that The River Maiden is now available as an ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Scribd and iTunes. You can download samples to your device or you can read the first seven chapters on Wattpad.

I am working now on making it available in paperback. I have some proofs from one printer that are being reviewed and am awaiting proofs from another printer. 

The feedback I've been getting so far is great. Check the reviews on Amazon and ratings on Goodreads.  Many of my twitter followers have had glowing things to say, and are already asking about the next book, which IS coming. I've got an outline and some passages written. I might even have a little preview for folks this summer just to whet appetites. 

I am SO gratified that it has been received as well as it has. I can only hope that with some more marketing attention that I wasn't able to do while wrapping up the other project, the momentum will only keep building. 

I have more to say about the process of getting this book to market, but I will save those things for other posts over the next few weeks. 

Are Nook Readers Hopeless Romantics?

Recently on a self-publishing forum that I frequent, a much more successful indie author than I asked the forum if we had seen our Nook sales dry up. I was one of the few people who answered "No". In fact, I have had a couple of months in the latter half of 2012 where Nook sales were all I had.  This prompted me to look a little closer at the difference between my Nook and Kindle sales and what some of the differences were. First, let's review the ebooks that I have and the differences between them (in case you haven't read them yet). I'll try not to give any spoilers.

With that said, it's interesting to note that 84% of my Kindle sales are of The White House. This isn't completely surprising in since The White House was released four months before A Fond Kiss. However, 100% of my Nook sales are for A Fond Kiss. That's right, I have not sold a single copy of The White House on the Nook. Which is a shame, because it's a really good story (not that I'm biased or anything;)

This is what leads me to ask the question at the top of this post. Are Nook readers hopeless romantics? It's pretty clear that my based-in-fact love story appeals to them far more than pirates, even famous ones. Is it because A Fond Kiss is a love story, or because it's based on a true story? This of course has me wondering what's different about Nook readers vs. Kindle readers.

After a little frustrated searching online the only information that I found about the demographic differences between Kindle and Nook readers is a couple of years old. Since the e-reader market has exploded in the last couple of years, I'm not sure how accurate that information is.  This article from ireaderreview.com shows that Kindle users tend to be older than Nook users and credits the Nook color/tablet with attracting a younger audience. It also suggests that the older audience prefers the Kindle because it's lighter and therefore easier on arthritic hands (A dubious conclusion).  Given that this data is from 2010, before the Kindle Fire was released and was from a self-selected survey, the data isn't exactly that scientific. In fact, based on my experiences both as a reader and author, I found the idea that the Nook appeals to a YOUNGER audience surprising.

Here is another article from the Florida Research Group that compares the demographics of all e-reader users, but again it's two years old. There is no end to the number of articles comparing the devices themselves, and they're great for consumers shopping for a device, but there really seems to be a limited amount of market research done for authors looking to maximize their sales on either one. If I were about to publish a romance novel and was trying to decide whether or not to opt in to KDP Select with its exclusivity requirement, I might like to know a breakdown on Romance genre sales on Nook vs. Kindle. Otherwise, I might lose sales from other platforms that have a large number of readers in my genre. For independent authors running their own show when it comes to marketing, this kind of information would be very helpful in targeting that marketing rather than the current throw everything against the social media wall and hope something sticks strategy or the increasing popular mimic the best-sellers (50 Shades of Fill-in-the-blank) and ride the wave of whatever's popular strategy.

Maybe this is something that KDP, Pubit and Smashwords can offer as a value add to their authors. Maybe it could be another revenue stream for them. I can imagine that I'm not the only author who would pay a REASONABLE  fee for a timely demographic analysis of e-reader users or even monthly newsletter that goes beyond just the bestseller lists and looks at who is buying. I would think that this is all data that these e-publishing platforms have, it would just be a matter of putting it together in a form that people can read.

Admittedly, I'm new at this and I've been eyes deep in editing lately, but this doesn't seem too much to ask. Maybe this is out there already. If it is, please point me in the right direction. I'm sure it's a product of my corporate sales background, but I can get kinda nerdy about this stuff, and as the saying goes, Knowledge is Power.

Sitting on it

It's been a while since I've updated the blog. This is mainly because I was pushing hard to have the book ready for beta readers by Christmas. Unfortunately, the flu got in my way by running through the family not once, but twice since I finished writing the book. When you throw in holiday preparations and a rather slow Alpha reader, you have a recipe for disaster. So I missed my deadline (GASP!). I know, it was a self-imposed deadline and I was sick in bed or bowing down to the porcelain god, but still I have an innate aversion (or dare I say horror) to missing deadlines. I mean the "dead" in deadline is there for a reason, right? On the upside, much of the time I spent in bed sick was spent thinking about my characters and the feedback that my Alpha reader, my husband, gave me and mentally plotting out the next book in the series. I also spent plenty of time thinking about my next move. Namely the question facing a lot of authors today; Do I zip this out to market via KDP and CreateSpace or do I attempt to sign with an agent and get a wider distribution and maybe a little marketing help (and yes I know that help would be very little)? On the one hand, publishers are loath to take a chance on a new author with a series, and they would take a bigger chunk of the pie so to speak. On the other hand, it takes a lot of work to get noticed out there in the big bad reading world and my little historical fiction shorts while getting terrific reviews, aren't exactly selling like hotcakes. So, while my piece of the indie pie might be bigger, the pie itself (at least so far) is barely even snack size. What's a girl to do? I'm going to sit on it. That is to say, I'm going to hold off  publishing this book until I have something more. Here's the plan:

1) I'm outlining the rest of the series, or at least the rest of the series involving the main characters as they stand now. This will give me a clear picture of where it's going and it will enable me to write a synopsis of each book.

2)Using the bird's eye view of the series from Step 1, write a pitch for the whole series with which to query agents. I believe that this series could be very commercial. I also believe it will fit nicely into the newly minted "New Adult" category that seemsso popular right now. It has enough of contemporary fantasy aspects to appeal to a young audience, but the characters and subject matter are definitely more mature than Young Adult. Imagine a Twilight style love triangle (no vampires or werewolves, I promise) with DaVinci Code style themes and you're coming pretty close.

3)Query, query query while working on my platform and trying to build an audience. That will likely include a trailer or two that I already have worked out in my head. Luckily I know a good filmmaker, my brother, who I might get to help me with that.

4) Write, write, write the second book. Hopefully, this one won't take more than a decade to write.  But the writing/editing of it will most likely determine the timeline of the rest of the plan. I'll keep querying until I get a bite or finish the second book. If no agents or publishers have bitten (I really promise there are no vampires in this series.), then I will likely publish them myself in close succession. That way I can hopefully whet the reader's appetites with the first two books enough to get them to buy a third and fourth, fifth, and who knows by then I might even plan a series for the next generation of characters.

At least that's my plan, and it feels pretty darn good to start off the new year with a plan.

Now for some details about the first book. The working title right now is THE RIVER MAIDEN. Here's a working cover. 

And here's the pitch:

Raised by her Scottish Grandmother in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Sarah MacAlpin grew up with one foot in the old world and one foot in the new world. She's worked hard to get to where she is and at 25 she's got her life planned out, that is until she meets Dermot Sinclair.

Plagued by nightmares of a tragic past and murky visions of the future Sarah pushes on toward finishing her dissertation. In spite of her hard work and planning the world around her seems to be spinning out of control. Her relationships with her boyfriend and her best friend are falling apart and the new guy in town seems to be dogging her every step. He's friendly enough and can help with her research, but she can't help thinking there's something that he isn't telling her.

If you're interested in reading further. There is a large chunk of the book available to read on Authonomy. If you read it there, please leave feedback. It will only help me. If you're interested in being a beta reader (kind of like a beta tester for software) and getting to read the whole thing once the edits are done (naturally in exchange for your feedback), please let me know in the comments here or through my Facebook page.

Thanks as always.

I hope you all will have as exciting a new year as I expect to.

So, what's your book about?

The picture you're looking at is a picture of the complete first draft of my first novel. It's in need of some serious editing, as any first draft should be, but it's done. I actually managed to put all the action that's been going on in my head onto paper.

I know you're probably thinking, 'Wow, big deal. We all write books. Hell those NaNoWriMo people do it in a month." And maybe you're right. But, have been working on this book off and on since shortly after I married my husband. In the time that it's taken me to get this plot out of my head I have;

• had two babies
• changed jobs three times
• been laid off TWICE (1 company went out of business, 1 eliminated my department)
• bought a house
• started a small business
• survived postpartum depression
• wrote and self-pubbed two short ebooks
• and beat myself up about eighty gazillion times for not finishing the book sooner

It finally took my younger child going to school to give me enough hours in the day to actually move the needle on this thing more than a millimeter at a time.  Once I was able to treat it like a job, albeit a part time one, it only took me a little over a month to fill in the blanks on this outline I've been toting around for the last year or so. And now, I've finally done it. Now my head is filled with visions of possible covers and book trailers and marketing plans.

"So, what's your book about?"

I confess I am frequently flummoxed by this question. Seeing as I've lived with these characters in my head for over a decade, I really should be able to sum it up easily. But if I say what the whole series is about, then I'd give away some major spoilers. If I say what inspired it, that would probably just be confusing to people who aren't Scotia-phile  genealogy folklore and politics nerds like me. That would also totally skip over the spiritual aspects of the journey that the main character is on. If I described it from that purely academic standpoint, you would never get that at it's heart it's a romance but not the kind that most people think of when they hear romance. There's a mystery, but it's not a mystery. There's paranormal stuff and some romance, but it's not a paranormal romance (No vampires or werewolves. I promise). There's danger, but I don't know that I'd call it a thriller. There's a love story...sort of.

Clearly, if I'm ever going to market this thing, I'm going to have to get a lot better at the 30 second elevator speech. I'm hoping that the editing/rewriting process will help clarify things. And I might want to settle on a title.

In the meantime, you can find some excerpts here.

A Fond Kiss

What with colds and stomach viruses, I haven't had much time to get work done in the last week or so. So, I will ply you today with a teaser from my upcoming novelette, A Fond Kiss. The ebook should be available soon. A Fond Kiss

“Mr. French, will you be able to visit your family before beginning your clerkship?” Mrs. Manney, as was her habit, made polite conversation while Minerva, bustled around the table serving dinner. This was the regular way of things at meals in the Manney household. Despite her northern roots, or perhaps because of them, Maria Manney was forever striving to outdo her southern neighbors in hospitality and elegance. Each day at the dinner table she set about providing her daughters with an ideal example of womanly behavior. She kept up a steady stream of pleasant if vapid conversation, diffused potential conflicts, and demonstrated impeccable manners for her children. The result of her hard work being that her children all had manners so fine that she never realized that they found her efforts at conversation to be a somewhat of a nuisance.

Charles cleared his throat. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I will be starting in Philadelphia almost as soon as I arrive. I am told that the attorney I’ll be working with is a stern taskmaster. I doubt that I will have time to visit them before I become an attorney myself.”

“You should try to find the time, young man.” Dr. Manney’s gruff voice cut in from the head of the table.  Where Mrs. Manney ensured that meals were pleasant for everyone, Dr. James Manney ruled like a stone-faced monarch caring little for the opinions of the others. Although he never missed meals, Charles had always had the impression that his mind was frequently elsewhere, likely on his next business venture. Rarely did he allow himself to be drawn into the conversation, save the rare occasion when something caught his attention. “Family is important. You’ve been separated from yours for too long.”

“I have, sir, and I do miss them. However, my mother and I correspond frequently. She keeps me abreast of the news at home, and living with a family as generous as yours has prevented me from getting homesick.” He smiled around the table being careful not to let his gaze linger on Nancy too long.

The doctor merely grunted and returned to his beef. When the main course was removed and Minerva brought the dessert, the doctor picked up the subject. “I suppose a young man in your situation has to be willing to leave family behind in pursuit of professional success.”

Charles wasn’t sure how to respond to that. What had the doctor meant by ‘your situation’? He was rescued by Nancy who asked in seeming innocence, “You mean the way that you did when you moved here from New York, Papa?”

All eyes turned to the doctor to guage his reaction to this question. He eyed his eldest daughter for a moment one eyebrow cocked high.  “Hmph, indeed.”

“I do believe this pudding has been burnt!” Mrs. Manney burst in from the foot of the table. “Minerva. I have told you that I cannot abide an overcooked pudding.”

“Yes’m. Can I get you some of that cantaloupe?” the house slave deftly lifted the pudding from in front of the doctor’s wife and placed it on the tray of dishes to be returned to the kitchen behind the house.

“No, I believe I have had enough. Nancy, when you are finished I would like for you and Francis to walk with me down to the mercantile. I want your help picking some ribbon for the new bonnets.”

“Yes, Mama.” Nancy cast Charles a look as she lowered her head appearing suddenly very interested in her pudding.

***

At the sound of her footstep in the hallway, Charles stepped from his room and silently followed Nancy into hers easing the door shut. “I’m going to talk to him while you’re out.”  He whispered.

She took a nervous breath. “Should I try to delay us returning?”

“I hope there will be no need for that.” He took her hand in his. “I will give him the final progress reports on James and Julia, and that should conclude any work that I have left to do. Once I’m no longer working in the house, I don’t see how he can object.”

“I wish I had your confidence. I just don’t know how he’s going to take this.” She stepped away from him to her wardrobe to retrieve her bonnet and lace gloves from a top drawer. Charles was suddenly struck by the novelty of being in her room, of knowing in which drawer her gloves were kept. Had he not been so nervous he would have savored this small intimacy. “You’ve seen all the young men he’s introduced me to over the last couple of years.”

“I have," He refocused his eyes on her face. "And in a few years once I’m practicing law I’ll outshine them all. He saw enough promise in me to bring me here, surely he can believe in my future success.”

A sound in the hallway silenced them and they held their breath for a moment afraid of being discovered. It wouldn’t do to find the family tutor in Nancy’s room. They had managed to keep their romance a secret for over a year.

When she was satisfied that they had not been overheard, Nancy began fumbling with the tiny crocheted buttons at the wrist of one of her gloves. She made a guttural sound of impatience. “My hands are shaking. This blasted button loop is twisted!”

He took her hand and attempted the button himself, but his blunt fingers weren’t of much more use on the tiny buttons and the twisted loops that were supposed to fit around them. “How do you ever wear these things!”

“Charles, what if he says no?” Her voice sounded impossibly small. He looked up to find her watching him, in her eyes a blend of uncertainty, hope and fear.

“He won’t.”  He turned back to the button and finally managed to push the button through the tiny loop. He held her wrist up to show her. “See? It will work out.”

Her eyes began to get misty and she merely nodded and began fervently examining her bonnet.

He titled her chin up with his other hand and tried to sound more sure than he felt. “No matter what he says, we will be together. We were going to wait anyway until I am set up. If I can’t convince him now, then I will convince him then. I would rather leave here knowing that I have his blessing to return, but even without it I will be back for you. As long as I know that you believe in me, I can bring your father around eventually. You do believe in me, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Then that is all I need.” He lifted her gloved hand and placed a kiss just where the glove ended at her wrist feeling her pulse jump. “I love you. No matter where I go or how long it takes me to return you have to know that.”

She swayed toward him and leaned her cheek against his lapel. It was the most contact they had allowed themselves in their long but secret courtship. Charles fought against the urge to wrap his arms around her and simply hold her there until all else fell away. He had to satisfy himself with bending to his head to kiss the top of hers taking a moment to mark the lemony scent of her hair.

“Nancy!” Her mother’s sharp voice barked from the bottom of the stairs. They both leapt apart.

They said nothing more but sought courage in each other’s eyes for a few more heartbeats before Nancy opened the door just enough to slip outside. Charles stood listening to the silence in the hallway and staring at the door she had just closed. He muttered a quiet prayer to himself before slipping into the hall.

Please, indie authors...

Feel free to imagine me giving you the stink-eye over the top of my Miss Crabtree spectacles when I say this. We've got to do a better job of proofreading books. I know it's hard, and I'll admit that the first edition of The White House despite my best efforts was published with a handful of errors that have since been corrected. I just have to get this off my chest. Because I love indie books and what indie publishing is doing to the industry, I feel like this must be said.

If we want to be taken seriously as authors/publishers, our stuff has to be as close to perfect as we can make it. I hear on many reader discussions and boards that people don't like to read indie books because of grammatical and formatting errors. Naturally this is followed by a comment left my some well meaning indie author who says some thing like, "Well, traditional publishers miss typos and errors too." And that's sadly true. But is the lowest common denominator really the measuring stick that you want to use?

My 7 year old son with ADHD frequently follows tales of how he got called out by the teacher for some infraction by telling me of the troubles of another student in his class with worse behavior issues. My response to this is to point out the worst behaved kid in the class should not be setting the standard for good behavior. "Well, they're just as bad." or "They did it worse." are not the statements of people seeking excellence. If we as independents want our books to be considered on par with traditionally published books, we cannot stop at good enough.

With that said, I'd like to point out some common mistakes that I have seen in many of the indie books that I have read lately. None of these would be caught by a spelling or grammar check.

• Mixed Up Homophones - Anyone who has talked to anyone on the internet is familiar with people mixing your and you're or there, their and they're and I'll admit I have to hold onto my desk to keep from correcting people constantly. But more disturbing lately are mix ups like past and passed. For the record passed is a verb. Past is an adjective and sometimes a noun. Too often lately, I have seen sentences like this, "The people on the street walked right passed the victim bleeding onto the sidewalk." That would be the wrong usage for the verb, passed. Here is a correct example, "I burned my fingers on the hot dish when Aunt Martha passed me the peas." This is just one of the examples of surprisingly mixed up homophones that I have seen in indie books of late.

• The Extra Word - This is an error that seems to occur a lot when the word flow from brain to fingers gets muddled, or when a writer goes back to make a change to a sentence, but doesn't completely delete the original words. Here's an example. "He heard the shallow wheeze of her breath and some small part of him tried to believe how that she would make it back to port." It's easy to see how this can happen, but is very jarring to the reader's ear. This can take a reader right out of your story and destroy the flow of your prose.

• Spell-check Escapees - These are misspellings that are actually words and therefore not caught by spell-check. Naturally these words just come off as wrong and the story teller loses credibility. For example: "He’d never been so chose to death before." Chose is a word and would not be detected by a spell checker, but it doesn't make sense in the context of the sentence. The actual sentence should read. "He’d never been so close to death before." which makes for an evocative sentence. The meaning and emotional punch of the sentence is completely lost with the incorrect word there. Spell-check is clearly not a reliable proofreader.

Now, I'm sure you're probably cursing me for a self-righteous busybody at the moment, but have patience. I have some suggestions.

Indies that we are, most of us (me included) don't have big budgets with which to hire editors. I'm currently publishing short stories while working on a novel, so I'm not going to shell out the cash for an editor for projects that small. However, there are a few tricks we can use to make those little errors standout for correction before you publish.

• Read It Out Loud - I'm sure you've probably heard this suggestion regarding the flow of your prose. If you've tried it for that purpose, I'm betting that while you were reading you came across some errors. Reading your manuscript out loud is one of the greatest tools a writer has. It can call attention to awkward phrasing, clunky dialog (more on that in another post), typos, and grammatical errors. I really can't say enough good things about it.

• Print It Out- Often a change of scene helps to call attention to things that we might not have noticed. It is hard sometimes to see these errors on our computer/laptop/iPad screens when we're typing or rereading what we've written. Printing it out calls more attention to some of those errors. I try to be a pretty green-living girl and I know toner is expensive, but this really is a great way to review your manuscript for errors. They just seem to pop out more on paper than they do on the screen. If you print it out and then read out loud from the printed manuscript you can kill two birds with one stone.

• Other Eyes - No matter how many times you go back and read your manuscript the reality is, those words came from your head. Because of that you are predisposed to mentally fill in any gaps that might occur. You might not be the best person to proofread your manuscript. The reader can't read your mind, so the words on the page/screen have to be clear. Chances are if you're writing a book, you probably have some friends who like to read. Get one or two or five of them to take a look at your manuscript. They will most likely pick out some things that you missed.

In my previous life as a corporate trainer, I saw quite a few resumes. It may sound cruel especially in this job market, but when faced with a stack of resumes, I would first filter out the ones with grammatical errors. My thinking was that if someone is putting this document out there to speak for them and they didn't take the time to proofread it, then they don't have the attention to detail that's required for the job (or frankly any job). I don't see our books as any different. They may not create the reader's first impression of you, but they will create a lasting impression. So, indie writers, what is the impression that you want to make?

In closing, I would like to return to the issue of homophones. Rather than prattle on about how annoying I find this, I'll leave it to Brian McKnight and a puppet.

The Inspiration for "The White House"

Years ago on our first trip to Beaufort, NC my husband and I were sitting atop the rather conspicuous doubledecker bus that provided tours of the beautiful historic town. It was a hot July afternoon, and I'm sure we would have been more comfortable in the shade of the first level, but I'm a sucker for historic architecture and was willing to endure the heat to have an unobstructed view. At the edge of the historic district stands a 2 1/2 story white house with a 2 story porch on a slightly raised plot of ground, it's view from the street slightly obscured by trees. The vernacular architecture enthusiast in me identified the "hall and parlor" layout of the first story. It was also clear that this is one of the oldest houses we had seen on the tour. The tour guide called this the "Hammock House" for the slight rise on which it was built.  She also told us some of the many legends attached to the house that had been at that location almost longer than the town. The story that stuck with me the most was also the story that also was the murkiest without many supporting facts or specifics. The Hammock House first appears in a 1789 map of the coast and is prominently identified as The White House. However, it is believed to have been an old establishment by the time that map was made possibly dating back as early as 1713 when the town was first being planned. It is believed to have been an inn or ordinary. According to the earliest of the legends. Blackbeard was a regular guest, as the inn's location and Beaufort's deep natural harbor offered strategic advantages. On one occasion he is said to have brought his "wife" there on a visit. After staying at the inn for a few days, the pirate is said to have left and left his "wife" hanging from a tree in the back yard.

Of the many stories that I heard that day, this is one that sparked my imagination. I immediately began imagining scenarios that would have led to such cruelty, not that a notorious pirate would need much inducement to be cruel. What kind of woman must she have been? How had she come to be with Blackbeard? The story sparked so many questions that I had to learn more about the pirate, the town and the house.

In my research I discovered a couple more stories that further inspired me. Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, ran aground near Beaufort inlet in 1718. In 1996, marine archaeologists discovered a shipwreck near Beaufort Inlet that they are almost certain is the Queen Anne's Revenge. Some believe that Blackbeard grounded the ship on purpose as a sort of downsizing of his crew. I was fascinated by the idea of the pirate intentionally abandoning the ship that had served him so well and on the idea of pirate layoffs. What strategy would drive the pirate whose career seemed to be at it's height to jettison one of his most useful tools?

Another character that I came across in researching was Israel Hands, a person that not much is known about. As a writer that gave me a bit of freedom with which to flesh that character out. I also found intriguing, a story from Daniel Defoe's "General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates". During a card game, Blackbeard is said to have attempted to shoot another crew member, but hit Hands in the leg instead. When asked why he had done it, the pirate is said to have responded that “if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would forget who he was.” which is to say "the BOSS". This sent my mind down the line of questions about how a man maintained rule over a crew that at it's zenith numbered around 300 cut-throats. By all accounts, Blackbeard was notoriously ruthless, not just with the people of the ships and towns he terrorized but also with his own crew. We can only speculate that it was that kind of behavior that inspired loyalty out of fear, but also inspired the kind of pragmatism that cause Israel Hands to testify against the corrupt officials along the North Carolina coast who helped Blackbeard elude the colonial authorities for so long.

All of these different aspects of the Blackbeard and Hammock House legends went into the creation of my story "The White House". I have tried to weave these loose bits of legend into characters and a narrative that attempts to answer some of those questions inspired by what we know of Blackbeard, his crew and this one of his many wives.  Although the story is set in 1718, the questions that it attempts to answer about power, love and humanity are timeless.

The White House is now available via: Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble