Mary Montague Sikes - Monti!

Introducing Mary Montague Sikes - Monti




Monti is well along in her virtual blog tour and today she stops here to share some views on book trailers and news on her releases.



Book Trailers – Do They Help You Select a Book?


Book trailers have become pretty popular among writers. My two latest books, Night Watch and Dangerous Hearts, have book trailers. I just checked and Night Watch has been viewed 161 times and Dangerous Hearts has been played 185. Of course, some of the views counted are my visits checking to see how many other folks have come by to see it. I don’t know how many views an author can expect from trailers of his/her books, but I think that would be an interesting statistic to have.

As I thought about Night Watch and the connection of my book to the sea, I was pleased my trailer illustrates that dramatic link for readers who love the water and visiting places surrounded by it. Although I know that everyone who views a book trailer doesn’t buy the book, I wonder if some people do.

(Karen stepping in here to say she's intrigued by this, since she has a boat of her own)

Monti and The Question du Jour

If you are purchasing a book, will looking at a trailer influence you strongly for or against a purchase?

Will you even bother to take a look? Here are the links to my trailers: (Karen here again- Blogger is having a link attachment glitch this morning. Please copy and paste the urls to see Monti's trailers. I'm still working on getting them active)




http://www.photoshow.com/watch/zX6ym2DE

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Rc4xI2Ue

More and more often now in order to be successful, published authors must become marketers. I wonder what promotional ideas work best for them. Please share your thoughts on book trailers as a useful marketing tool.

My virtual blog book tour for Night Watch is nearing an end. This is my last stop on the tour which seems a little sad. I’ve loved meeting lots of new people along the way. I hope I’ve picked up some new readers and blog followers as well.

Thank you, KK for having me as your guest. It’s fun to be a part of a different blog each day and discover different styles of blog interaction.

Please don't forget I have a contest going. The winner will receive an autographed copy of my new novel, Night Watch. Just leave a comment at each site where I will be guest blogging as my Blog Book Tour for Night Watch continues. The schedule is below:

Nov. 11 - Patricia Stoltey

Nov. 12 - Nancy Williams

Nov. 15 - AlexCavanaugh

Nov. 16 - Marian Allen

Nov. 17 - Bodie Parkhurst

Nov. 18 - Thoughts in Progress

Nov. 19 - K. K. Brees

Mary Montague Sikes The Official Bio!

Monti is an award-winning author, freelance writer, photographer, artist, and teacher who loves to travel, especially to exotic tropical locations. The settings for her books and articles include Jamaica, Antigua, Trinidad, and St. Martin. Her most recent research trips carried her to Los Cabos on the western coast of Mexico, to Yellowstone National Park where she took over 500 photographs, and to Carmel-by-the-Sea where she marveled at photo opportunities wherever she turned.

The Fredericksburg, VA native is author of seven award-winning books. She presents workshops on promotion and marketing to state and national conventions as well as to many local writers groups. Hotels to Remember, a coffee table book that includes the Jefferson Hotel, the Homestead, and the Hotel Del Coronado is illustrated with her artwork and photographs.

A founder of Virginia Romance Writers, she has served on the Board of Governors of the Virginia Writers Club and is a member and past president of the Richmond Branch of the National League of American Pen Women. Her poem and paintings are featured in Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln, an anthology of work by members of the National League of American Pen Women. She is included in Who’s Who in American Women.

Her paintings are exhibited widely in Virginia and are in private and public collections in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Night Watch, her latest novel, was released earlier this year. Dangerous Hearts, a novella set in Virginia, was released by Red Rose Publishing in June.

Dan Brown's Favorite Word

Not a Spoiler

I've just finished Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. It was a hefty paperback, somewhere over 500 pages, and I suspect the editor got tired of editing after the first couple of hundred, went out for coffee, and didn't return. This isn't going to be a book review - I don't do those but do admire those who can write good ones. I don't even read all that many reviews. Mostly I make up my mind by browsing, checking out the front and back covers and reading the first few lines.

I enjoyed The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons not so much. Didn't care for the blood and gore but decided to give this latest in the series a try. It was a good read but nothing spectacular.

It was a thriller with an interesting shortened time frame - everything taking place within 24 hours and mostly over the course of one night. What took away from the read was a word that first insinuated itself in describing one of the characters.

Elegant

"The elegant African-American..." Odd choice for a descriptor, I noted, but read on. Then this was elegant and that was elegant. Everything was elegant. Elegant. Elegant. Elegant. After a bit, I wondered if Brown wasn't playing a game with the editors to see if they'd catch it. They didn't. It became irritating and a detractor and a distraction. Elegant. Ick.

I wish the editor had reported back to work after the coffee break. Just goes to prove we all need editors. You can't edit your own work.

Monti Visits This Week

I'll be posting, or rather Monti will, later on this week. Please stop back on the 19th to share in her virtual book tour.

NaNoWriMo and Other News

Happy Monday to All!

I love NaNoWriMo - my house is never this clean otherwise. I am the Queen of Procrastination. I've been mulling over some plot problems but in the meanwhile, absent from the computer seat, I have:

1. Begun Fall Housecleaning. Some people clean thoroughly in the spring. Not me. Fall is the time to get this done. One room a day from top to bottom. That includes washing glass fixtures, cleaning out drawers and closets and making everything sparkle. Not windows, outside though. Do the outside in the summer.

2. Washing my insulators. Yep. I collect telephone insulators and while my collection is small, they can get dusty. Now they sparkle and shine. An inspiration to my writing muse. Maybe.

3. Washing my collection of antique milk bottles. Same thing here as above. Since all these collections are in my office, I expect they will now have increased ability to inspire my writing.

4. Canned the rest of the apples. Got 14 pint jars of smooth and 14 jars of chunky applesauce, along with 18 quarts of apple pie filling. Stored them in the cupboards for the year.

5. Cleaned the office. Actually found some stuff I was looking for, except still can't find my local grocery store discount shopping card.

6. Made a hundred flash cards for German words.

And now, with no further excuses, I'm off to check on my favorite blogs and actually rack up some words on the wip.

Happy writing everyone and see you next Monday.

Apples and Autumn

Autumn, as I've probably mentioned before, is my favorite season. Perhaps it's because nights and early mornings are crisp and cold, so it's time for fires in the fireplace and wood stove. It's more than that, however. There's a sense of the need to finish outdoor projects before snow falls. We've already had the first dusting on the mountains around the valley and soon the snowline will reach the valley floor.

Days grow shorter and nights longer, and the season is a reminder of the fleeting, precious nature of life itself. The spectacle of red and yellow colors on the trees and the musty scent of leaves underfoot, crisp or sodden, mark this time as one of nature's most glorious.

This weekend we drove to our apple tree to gather a heaping boxful. The tree grows outside the fence of a farmhouse, abandoned long ago. The tree, planted many years ago, still bears a heavy load of fruit each fall. I can picture a family living here, children sent to pick the windfalls and the mother on a ladder reaching for the higher branches. The tree was smaller then. Now the highest branches are far above our heads. Armed with a cultivator to pull down a few of these branches, we fill the big box. Some apples have wormholes, some don't. It's not hard to cut out the damaged parts.

So far I've canned a load of chunky applesauce and a load of smooth. Today I'll do a load of apple pie filling. Should take the better part of the week to work through the box. The ruby red peels make jelly. The cut out parts and the cores go into the compost pile. Nothing gets wasted. The kitchen is full of the aroma of cooking apples, and I think that says autumn to me most of all.

And now, NaNoWriMo calls. Next post here will be Monday next. Happy week and happy writing to all.

Odds and Ends and Why are Ends Odd?

I love words. I love the sound, the imagery, and the complexity of them. I love language. Not always the diva of communication, however, but I try. I've been known, in the midst of a conversational exchange to ask, "Where do you suppose that word came from?" This tends to make all but my close friends shy away as if I'm harboring some sort of communicable disease.

However, words are fun. I've just bought the entire Rosetta Stone program for German and am valiantly slogging through it. I've lost a great deal of my vocabulary over the years (one of the major problems of living in a country that parades English as the ONLY LANGUAGE WORTH KNOWING OR SPEAKING. Ahem...

When I was a child, Danish and German were spoken by the adults around me. I listened and learned the speech patterns, but children were spoken to in English. So now I am determined to reclaim the language I heard but couldn't use as I was growing up. It's tougher now but I've got a goal. Next year we're going to Europe (my first time) and I'm determined to have my German (Deutsch) up and running at top speed. Working on it every day.

The Toilet Seat

No, this isn't about the eternal male/female war over leaving the seat up or putting it down. This is about my major mechanical victory. This morning I uninstalled the old toilet seat in my bathroom and installed a brand new one. The entire job only took me half an hour and I am basking in the glow of my mechanical achievement.

If you are saying, "So what?" and "Half an hour? That's a five minute job." - you don't understand. I am not mechanically inclined. At all. My husband tells me I am mechanically absent. I don't understand how things work. He's right in some regards. I can do many things. Some things I do very well:

1. I am an excellent food preserver.
2. I sew very well.
3. I quilt like a pro.
4. I am one of the best gardeners of vegetables you will ever find.
5. I speak a bunch of languages.
6. I earned a Ph.D. at the age of 55 just because I wanted to.
7. I ....

Okay, running out of Major Accomplishments here. The point is, we're all good at some things, average at many others, and totally inept at a whole lot of the rest of the stuff there is to know and do in the world.

What's the lesson here? Humility for one. Admiration for people who have a skill and use it for the good of others.

Question du Jour: What's your greatest skill? What's the area of your life where you're not just challenged, but buffaloed?

Honest Scrap Award

I love the name of this award: Honest Scrap. It brings to mind all sorts of questions - Are there dishonest scraps? What is an honest scrap? Is there an organization of honest (or dishonest) scrappers? Regardless, it sounds feisty and that works for me. Thanks to my good blogging friend Nancy R. Williams who blogs honestly scrappy enough at:http://nrwilliams.blogspot.com/ for bestowing the honors upon me.

I'm going to do this in stages. Today, as per the requirements, here are 10 things about me you may not know.

1. My illustrious ancestor, John Boyle O'Reilly, (the Irish poet, patriot, and orator) was on the last convict ship to Australia. He chose transport over hanging. Smart lad.
2. I love strawberry ice cream sodas.
3. I attended more grammar schools than there are grades in those things.
4. I hate my hair.
5. I still have my best friend from the 4th grade.
6. Been married to the same guy for over 40 years. He's a keeper.
7. I respect my adult children. They've turned out well and do me proud.
8. I cannot add a simple sum of numbers without making stupid mistakes. Math and I are sworn, eternal enemies.
9. I can get by in 4 languages. Especially if I use gestures and intense facial expressions.
10. I believe that faith is the strongest ally we have in this world.

For the next part of this award, I must inflict this duty on 7 other fellow and fellowette bloggers. That will happen Thursday. Beware, friends.