May - Ready For Some Beach Volleyball?

Most writers use all sorts of experiences from their past, inserting details from real life. I certainly could be called a gym rat at one point in time. Both my daughters played club volleyball in high school, and then played in college. I was familiar with the smell, the feel of the gym and the groups of girls who came and went, their entourage in tow. Girls were looking for coaches to scout them to perhaps give a spot to try out for a team, perhaps defraying part of college costs. Indeed, for my girls, playing volleyball did help out with college expenses.

My new Band of Bachelors, Book 2: Alex, releases next month. The heroine of this story, Sydney Robinson, is a beach volleyball player, seeking a new partner after her old one is injured. Of course she will meet Navy SEAL Alex Kowicki on a blind date, one of many he's allowed his bachelor buddies to arrange for him. Their first encounter is as an explosive and unusual affair involving zombies, popcorn with Junior Mints and soda. Not fair for me to give you all the deets.

It's the first time I've written a six foot four inch lady, and one who is taller than the leading man. She has an Amazon body, and isn't afraid to use it. And she's a complicated mess at first when the reader gets first introduced to her. She has her strong side, and her soft little girl side she doesn't let people see very often.

     He watched her sleep, as she hugged his upper arm, burying it into her chest, looking like little girl lost, like she’d never let go. Her face with a soft crease between her brows indicated perhaps she’d had a sudden bad dream. Maybe that’s what wakened him.  Carefully he used his other hand, drawing the strands of brown hair from her forehead to watch her more closely. She clutched his upper arm tighter, rolling her hips against his thigh in her sleep.

I wrote about soccer players in SEAL's Goal in the Kindle World Game For Love. I spent hours and hours on the sidelines at soccer matches, even getting tossed for making a comment about a reffing call. For the most part, I behaved.

Bringing sports into my SEAL stories has been a fun adventure for me. There are so many similar things an elite athlete does, just like a Navy SEAL. The focus, the training, the working with teammates--all these things are similar and make for good content. How they get expressed, or not expressed, adds some tension to the romance. Competition can be a good thing. In a romance it can also be a bad thing.

I wrote this scene describing the fictitious gym called The Beach in my town of Santa Rosa. It's a gym, if I could have about $10M and some change to build, that would be a huge youth center and a boon to the community. It also will figure heavily in the later part of the book in a surprise twist. Here's the scene, as I saw it:

    She arrived at the Beach Inc. complex twenty minutes early. Already the parking lot was filling with Suburbans as scores of high school girls teams poured into the main gym, knee pads floating above their socks at their ankles.

            Sydney walked through the heavy glass doors and heard the roar of voices, whistles and team shouts. The air was cool, electric with excitement, purpose. She could smell the competitiveness hitting her flush in the face and she loved it. Drank from it. Inhaling, she discovered she’d been holding up the entrance, so stepped aside to let several young players and their chapperones enter.

            Carly had reserved a sand court, she’d told her. Sydney began to walk further into the space. The two-story structure had perhaps a dozen traditional indoor courts, on both floors. Large expanses of glass divided the playing areas, with skylights bathing the whole interior in natural light. The state-of-the-art facility was impressive.

            Several games were in progress. Sounds of whistles, the never-ending “sideout” and team cheers echoed throughout the huge structure. Parents and other team players sat on padded seats on risers instead of the standard metal or wooden benches Sydney was used to.

            A Hawaiian-themed snack bar was down at one end of the building, near the four sand courts. Beach Boy and Margaritaville music boomed while two attendants in flowered Aloha shirts helped the customers. A short line of thin giraffe-like girls waited for smoothies and bagels for breakfast. Sydney had been one of them not too long ago. The squeal of an espresso machine pierced the air and surprised her.

            Sydney smiled and shook her head. This was not what her growing up had been like. She’d played in hot smelly gyms all over California, from brand new courts in the Central Valley to dingy inner city courts lined with graffiti and exploded toilets in the Bay Area and L.A. She’d attended summer camps at colleges that didn’t have gyms as nice as this one was.

            “Hey, bitch!” Carly’s voice streamed across the room. “You ready to play, or are you going to go have a smoothie?”

How about you? Do you enjoy reading about sports in romance novels, and if so, which sports? Do you like reading about men or women's sports, or both?

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Sharon Hamilton

Life is one fool thing after another.

Love is two fool things after each other.

Author Page ** Sharon's Blog ** Sharon's Website ** Facebook**Twitter

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WRITING SERIES AND KEEPING IT FRESH AND SNAPPY

Writing my books in series is something that has come quite naturally. When I create a world, whether it be a brotherhood of hunky Navy SEALs in my fictional SEAL Team 3, or my Golden Vampires of Tuscany series, or Guardian Angels, that world gets enhanced as I bring in new characters and plots in subsequent books. The trick is to make a stand-alone book, and at the same time rewarding returning loyal readers.

With the thousands of new books coming on the market in any given day, I find having a series gives people a reason to go to my website or Amazon page. They might remember something they'd read a year ago, may not be on social media that much and just wonder, by searching the series title, if there are new books out.

Some people say that long strings of series are not a good thing, that reviewers will not review a Book 8, for instance, because they don't want to have to read the first seven. Well, that may be the case for professional book bloggers who have a limited amount of time to review and post their findings. If you have to read seven books to get sufficient background for Book eight, and, especially if all those books must also be read in order, I think that book or series, unless highly recommended, might be skipped.

Early on with my SEAL Brotherhood books, the first four in the Series were better off read in order. After book 5, Cruisin' For A SEAL, I paid more and more attention to a book being stand-alone, and today, that's all I write. I like calling little subseries like Band of Bachelors, or True Navy Blue instead of saying Books 11, #12 or #13. The latter books can be read in any order.

I also weave in characters from previous books. When I have holes in the series, I can write a novella. I can bundle them, add bonus material, change backmatter and do all manner of other things to my books. The hero and heroine in one book is a strong secondary couple in the next one, and so on. This way I achieve a high degree of variety, but the overall story arc is intact.  It seems so wrong to destroy or ignore a world I've taken such time to begin.

And I'm just about to add another series: Nashville SEALs. Some of my characters
from Band of Bachelors: Lucas, spend half their time on a mission in Nashville, so it's only natural they stop by and watch a young up-and-coming star perform in front of a packed house of ladies. Little did any of them know that fateful night would change all of their lives forever.

Using the same narrator for all the audio books is very smart because, if he's good, he'll draw the readers in who might not have found my print books ever. Having someone, especially someone you can count on to sound the same book after book after book, holds the story together. Your narrator becomes a character in your books, so this thread of consistency will also help strengthen your readership.

Today, we're celebrating Book 1 in my new series, Band of Bachelors: Lucas. Here's the brand new You Tube video trailer, just out today:

https://youtu.be/nrKpKXaq1WE

I'd really like to hear what you think. One commenter will get a pink camo tee shirt.

Audio Books - What I've Learned

Last year at RWA, Audible asked me to sit on a panel and share my successes doing audio books. My narrator made up this audio snippet to play, and we wowed the audience with the creative possibilities. Now I have 16 under my belt, so I have even more I can share. In fact, if you'll be around the Nashville area, I will be giving a small presentation, with my awesome Nashville narrator, J.D. Hart, on October 3 for the Indie Romance Convention, just before the book signing that date. Whatever I didn't cover here, will surely be covered there in Tennessee in a little over one month.

No one has come up with a good way to promote audio books, IMHO. There are small blogs and bloggers out there who will do reviews and post them, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart, but frankly, there isn't a source, except for paid advertising in some expensive magazines that promotes audio books. It's still like the Wild West out there, every author and even publishing house kind of "doing their own thing."

I consider my friendship and collaboration with J.D. Hart a tremendous asset and a boon to my career. I can only hope that all of you find yourselves lucky enough to find a great narrator who can work with you on book trailers, snippets to SoundCloud or other things you might need for promotion. And remember, audio books are books. Funny how publicists and promoters don't think of that when they are designing an author's campaign. The audio book listener is different than the eBook listener. They like to savor the stories, take their time. Remember, most audio books are 7-10 hours long. A great reader can finish a good book in 3-4 hours, or less. So, younger readers I find are not into audio books, unless they are doing a long commute or have lots of free time. Unless you're very wealthy, most young people I know have little or no time. That's why I think there has been such a surge in the novella market.

Narrowing the field a bit more, some people want to hear their own idea of how the hero sounds. They may not like my husky voice of a man I like to whisper in my ears. They may have some other idea, so an audio book might take them out of the story. I find that the listener, if they will give the narrator time enough, can adjust to this. Remember that Diana Gabaldon didn't like the producers' choice of Jamie Fraser at first, but as she watched the actor reel and sample reading, she said he became the character Jamie Fraser to her. Simply put, she let the actor do his job. And he did.

Most authors don't understand that the Narrator becomes a character in her book, since the book is told through the narrator's eyes. He gives a read, but it is more than just telling the story, he performs the story for the reader, thereby adding his interpretation of the words. If we didn't have this, we'd have books we all would fall asleep over every day. And there are plenty of those out there to begin with!

My narrator had to point this out to me. Now it seems so obvious. The collaboration we do together isn't anything I could have done by myself. It gives the reader three ways to enjoy my story: to read it electronically, hold a printed book in their hot little hands, and listen to the story as told by a talented actor with a dreamy voice. My best and most loyal fans enjoy my books all three ways, and several of my author friends have had the same results.

Coming 10-19-15

We've been fortunate to sell nearly 12,000 audio books since I began this new media venture under two years ago now. Going forward, I only see this trend as strengthening as new forms of media pop up, new devices are created and the talented people at Apple and others come up with new, perhaps more interactive ways of relating to a favorite story. Look at what has happened with video movies. Don't you sometimes enjoy the bloopers, or re-watch the movie with the Director's narration, the actor interviews and the "Making Of" portions of the movie?

I think in publishing, audio books allow the reader to have more bites of the Apple (if you'll forgive the pun) -- more chances to experience the story in a fuller dimension.

What are your thoughts on audio books?

Sharon Hamilton is a NYT and USA/Today bestselling author most known for her SEAL Brotherhood series. She also writes a Golden Vampire and Guardian Angel series.

A lifelong organic gardener, Sharon lives with her husband in the Wine Country of Northern California, where most of her stories take place. When she’s not writing, she’s getting verra verra dirty in the mud, or wandering Farmer’s Markets looking for new Heirloom varieties of vegetables and flowers.

Sharon Hamilton

Life is one fool thing after another.

Love is two fool things after each other.

Author Page ** Sharon's Blog ** Sharon's Website ** Facebook**Twitter

Sharon’s Newsletter