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The Blood-Red Pencil Editors are also published authors. Check out some of our latest and most popular releases! Genres include Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy, Romance, Memoir, and books to help you with your writing craft.   Linda Lane Tormented Tango Family must be protected at all costs. Even if it means killing them. Former prosecutor Aidan Wolf runs a small legal aid office. Defense lawyer Jenna Jacobs rarely loses a case, but she lost Aidan Wolf. District Attorney Wilson Howell, wife Becca, and their two teenagers live in what he believes is near-perfect bliss. And then…  Buy Here Linda Lane The Accounting What if the person who should love you the most hurts you the worst?  A powerful story of families that you won’t soon forget. Woven through its pages, The Accounting shares within its carefully crafted plot and well-defined characters events that will forever change the lives of four Kohler households. Family dynamics expose their weaknesses and reveal their strengths as they a
Recent posts

Audiobook Warning - New IP Rights Clauses in Findaway Voices Terms

When the horrendous terms of Amazon’s Audible platform were revealed, many indie authors turned to Findaway Voices to distribute their audiobooks instead. But the industry is now scrambling in alarm following the 2022 acquisition of Findaway Voices by Spotify, who, within two years, have managed to make Amazon look like a perfect saint in comparison. (Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.) Although Spotify backed down (slightly) thanks to the overwhelming backlash following their initial announcement, which included the line about waiving the right to object to derogatory use of one’s work, their previous history of issues in the music industry along with their apparent lack of understanding of the independent book publishing industry is deeply concerning. The original paragraph in the new Spotify terms that sparked outrage. This clause has since been redrafted.   As part of their backpedaling, Spotify published a list of FAQ in direct response to concerns voiced over social

Don't Send Your Author Newsletter Until You Meet Google's New Requirements

Google's Gmail team, along with Yahoo and Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail), has begun the process of cracking down on junk mail of all kinds - not just spam, phishing, and virus-ridden pests, but also mail that is chronically ignored by recipients. As from this month (February 2024) the extended date of April 2024, there will be a number of requirements that need to be met before any bulk mail you send out will even be delivered.  Google announced  this change to email delivery conditions late last year, but, before we all panic, let's go through what you need to know if you’re planning on sending messages to your mailing list this year. Firstly, though you may see some sources reassuring you that this applies only to marketers sending more than 5000 messages per day per domain, you still need to take this seriously even if your mailing list is smaller than that. The 5000 emails criteria is only what Google has stated so far; the other major players (Yahoo and Micr

24 Ways to Spark New Story Ideas in 2024

Ask any author how they come up with their ideas, and the reflexive response is likely to be, “It just comes to me.” That’s not helpful, however, if you’re having to ask yourself that question because your idea-well has temporarily run dry. It can easily happen at the start of a new year when you’ve made the decision to begin something new, or write a sequel to last year’s novel, or you just want to enter a writing competition. Often our brains are terrible teases, serving up numerous ideas that are completely “wrong” in the moment – wrong genre, wrong book series, wrong historical period, wrong age group... Discovering how your mind works, how the spark of a story begins to flicker into existence for you, will allow you to light the flames of your creativity whenever you like, and fan them in the direction you need them to go. Browse through the 24 sources of inspiration listed below and see which of these resonate with you, and whether there are a few unexpected options you’d like

Hiatus - Back in January 2024

  Many of our team members have been dealing with personal issues and challenges this year, so we are taking a break until 2024. See you in the new year! Painting "Decadente" by Ramon Casas, 1899

How to Sell Your Book: the Five Ws

There have never been more books to read, which is a good thing for story addicts like me. I am by no means a marketing expert but there are certain things that help me as a reader decide whether or not I will buy a book. Let's look at those items. The first item that catches my eye is the cover . There are many creative things people do when designing. There are thousands of premade covers. Many covers utilize the same stock art in both self-publishing and traditional publishing. For me, the cover needs to be seductive. It needs to suggest something interesting is going on inside. For me, it needs to reflect genre. If it is a mystery, I want to see the setting and a cover that suggests either gritty, noire, or cozy. Cozy I definitely look at. Noire I don't care much for but may look at. Gritty is a fifty-fifty kind of thing. How graphic is the violence? If I see cute kittens on the cover and then it goes into graphic details about serial killers enjoying their job, I will nev

Writing in Stressful Times

Have you ever found writing difficult in times of worldwide chaos? I doubt any of us is old enough to have been putting serious pencil to paper during World War II. I am among BRP's eldest contributors, and my first attempts at childish poetry came at the very end of that war (or perhaps shortly after it was over). On the heels of WW2 came the Korean Police Action followed by the civil war in Viet Nam that eventually involved military personnel from other countries. And along came Iraq and Afghanistan wars. While none of the more recent military actions reached the magnitude of the Second World War, all have impacted people around the globe. Then Covid-19 rode into the world with 2020 and introduced a global pandemic that has infected more than 767 million people and snuffed out 6,935,889 million lives as of 6 a.m. on May 31, 2023, according to WHO. While this huge death toll pales compared to the deaths of an estimated 75 - 200 million people in Western Eurasia and North Africa du

Understanding the Hatchette v Internet Archive Lawsuit and Ruling

Four publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House) sued the Internet Archive after it created a National Emergency Library that ran from March 24, 2020, to June 16, 2020, under its Controlled Digital Lending program (CDL) . This was a temporary book collection created from thousands of e-books and was intended to provide reading matter to people in lockdown when physical libraries had to close during the early stages of the pandemic. Although libraries have been allowed to create and lend out one electronic version (i.e., scanned) for every physical book it owns (in lieu of lending the physical copy, not in addition to), for the National Emergency Library the Internet Archive was lending out multiple copies of a digital book at once , and the four publishers sued over a number of their books included in the collection. The Internet Archive claimed they were operating under the fair use doctrine , but the publishers have sued for mass copyright infringement . O

Pets are the antidote to Guns, Banned Books, and Crazy People

April has been a hard month for me. I've had knee problems, our heating unit failed, and our water heater needed to be replaced. But nothing could compare with the sadness that's consumed me in the aftermath of the passing of my beloved dog, Bogie, who’s been by my side for almost ten years, who slept with me, followed me from room to room, and loved me without reservation. I know I’m not alone in this situation. I’ve read the stories of friends on Facebook who have gone through the same thing, lamenting that they’ve lost their best friend, that there was and never will be another pet like theirs. I feel the same way. Our pets just don't live long enough. I asked myself if there was anything more I could have done or steps I could have taken to extend Bogie’s life. The answer is no, and even the vet said I had performed a miracle to give him the extra few months he lived. I bought special food for his renal failure, gave him daily injections of fluid and pills to ward off