Cover art...I need your help!

Good afternoon!

I'm NOT what one would call an excellent cover artist. But I do enjoy the process and, with much trial and error, I've been able to create a couple fairly decent covers for some of my books.

Now, with Spark of a Hero's release announcement just around the corner, I need to do come cover art.

I also need to decide what the title is actually going to be.

Friends, I need your help BIG TIME!

I need you to vote on the art and the title.  Now, please forgive me, the pictures are rough and they do have the watermarks of the stock photo websites where I got them.  (Thank you, Dreamstime and Shutterstock!  I'm a faithful customer!!  But if you look at the two covers I've cobbled together today, as well as the titles, I'd like some feedback.  Which direction gives you a more favorable response?

COVER/TITLE  A

COVER/TITLE B

Now, in order to vote, either leave a comment here on the blog or hop on over to my FACE BOOK PAGE and leave a comment on there.  All you have to do is say "cover A"  or "Cover B" and "Title A" or "Title B"

I am definitely on the fence with both of these, and I know cover B is not as large, so it's not as easy to make out.  But there's a lot going on in both pictures.

And yes, I am leaning one way...slightly.

Readers, I depend on you for help!

And OF COURSE, everyone who votes will be entered into a drawing for a FREE COPY of the new book when it comes out!

Time to share!

Good afternoon!

This is a general invitation to all you authors, writers, poets, readers, and people who like to express your opinion.

I'm opening this blog up to you!

While I'm busy trying to crank out the second and third Elsie books AND a new novel before next June 1  (yeah, I said that)  I want to give you all a chance to share some opinions, news, ideas, and questions in this blog.

Are you an author who has a new book out?

Are you a writer who wants to open a discussion about e-pub versus traditional publishing?

Are you a poet who'd like to serenade us with something pretty?

Are you a reader who has yet to find the book that perfectly speaks to you?


Contact me!

You can reach me at momauthor@aol.com 

You can also message me on Face Book by clicking HERE!

I can't wait to hear from you all! 

Meanwhile, if you're a reader in search of something romantic, check out my novels:  CLICK HERE!


Hate your job?  Want to read about someone who hates hers more?  CLICK HERE!

Website or not to website...that is the question.

Hello all!

So during this period of cutting back whilst Hubby is on unexpected time off, I've been pondering the usefulness of my website.  I opened the site over a year ago, and haven't exactly burned up the Web with hits on it.

It's something I think every author/writer thinks about when trying to build a career without benefit of a six figure advance.  So, basically, if your name isn't Paris, Snookie, or Kardashian, you're wondering about this yourself.

Fledgling websites, generally created by authors who aren't Internet builders, and built on templates such as 1and1 or Intuit offer, are not terrible, but they aren't terribly awesome either.  I pay $8 a month for the site, and it sort of shows.  My goal has always been to flash it up once sales of my two books take off. 

Ahem...those of you who PROMISED you were going to buy the books...I'm waiting!

So while I'm still an otherwise employed author, does it pay to have a website bearing my name?

Some would say yes.  Your name in Web world is always a good thing, unless you're the HuffPost headline for some bad behavior.  (Wait, that's only bad if you're teaching Sunday School or running for President.)  Some would say that it's simply the right professional step for an author to get their name out there.

Some would say no.  With blogs, facebook, twitter, and myspace  (Does anyone still maintain their myspace?  I love mine, but only because I spent a year making it perfect.  I haven't been there in eons.) maybe we have enough of a presence, especially since with Pay pal, you can set up a blog to accept payments.

I'm not ready yet to close my site.  It's nice, I think, to have a .com that's simple and simply yours.  So much better than the web address for this blog, which clearly I created in a haze of pride for my first book and no concept of what a pain in the neck such a long address would be.  Thank goodness for bookmarks.

A year from now I may change my mind.  But a year from now I hope to have two Elsie books and a new novel out in the world.  Maybe more than one person a day will grace the doorstep of www.sarahjbradley.com

I lost a day to Facebook....can I file workman's comp?

Hello all!

Yep, this writer is doing all the things that a writer shouldn't. My fine friends at Mad City Romance will scold me because I was JUST THERE for a great talk on bad habits we writers get into that keeps us from writing.

Well, of COURSE I have to spend some time each day updating my multiple blogs (both of them) making sure my Myspace is pretty, and FACEBOOK...well, that's just a vital activity every day.

Yeah...not so much.

One of the things we did at the last meeting (and if you are anywhere NEAR Madison on the 17th of October, you should check out this group at the Middleton Library. They are an aweseom bunch!) was to take three small stones and write one word on each of them. Those words were things that we allow to get in our way that keeps us from writing. I put down TV, kids, and work. What I should have put down was TV, Facebook, and FACEBOOK!

It's a matter of focus and I don't have much at the moment. I should, I have a lot going on, but I don't. So, under the guise of "marketing" my book "dream in Color," (Which comes out 4-23-2010) I spent an hour today tyring to get a count down counter to work on this blog.

Yeah, it's time to get a bit more serious.

Writers fight this all the time. We let everything get in the way of actually writing. Most of us don't write full time, and even many who do have other obligations that just get in the way. Think of the hours of great creativity lost to things like carpool and ebay!

It's human nature. Unless something is a MUST DO, we push it aside. My friend Elliott is a BRILLIANT writer, but he doesn't focus much on his talent, he's got a job and family. My friend Linda has an amazing book that's done and one she's working on...but she's a mom and has a ton of stuff going on in her life. I could go on and on.

So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, resolve to do better tomorrow and keep the flame of hope alive for that novel that's sitting in our flash drives.

Meanwhile...I wonder what's going on over on Facebook????