For example, on the first page of a chapter, you don’t want a header. Likewise you don’t want headers showing on the front and back matter pages. In order to prevent this, each page of your front and back matter needs to be a new section. And likewise, each chapter must be the start of a new section.

So then, after you have all your Front Matter created and you’re happy with the layout, go to Page Layout, and choose Breaks in the Page Setup Group, and then choose the type of break you want at the end of each page of your front and back matter. If there are two pages that flow together, simply choose a “Continuous” break or “Next Page” break at the bottom of the first page. If each of your pages contains material that is not continued from a previous page, and you are not looking for a blank left page with text starting on an odd page on the right, then you can insert a Break “Next Page”, or Break “Even Page”. Whatever works for the layout you want.

Please keep in mind, however, that your title page should ALWAYS show on the right-hand or odd page. Therefore, the page before your title page should end with an “Odd Page” break inserted at the bottom of it. That will force MS Word to start the title page on an odd page.

Now that you have completed inserting section breaks in your front and back matter, you will, likewise, end each chapter of your novel with a section break “Odd Page”, so that each succeeding chapter ALWAYS begins on an odd page. This will make formatting headers easier as we move on.

So, once again, to insert your breaks, place your cursor just before the last Paragraph Mark on the page before the first page of a chapter. Click on the Page Layout Tab at the top of the screen. In the Page Setup Group of icons, choose the down arrow beside Breaks. Select the very bottom entry in the Section Breaks section of the menu: “Odd Page”. Be aware that if MS Word has to skip a page to start your chapter on an odd page, you won’t see the blank page on the screen, but when printing or converting to PDF the blank page will be there.

After you have gone through your manuscript ensuring that each chapter will begin on an odd page, you have completed your section breaks. I’ll see you next time to discuss headers and footers.

Have a wonderful day and good luck with your novel formatting.

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So then, on to Step 6. The next thing you need to do is create or modify your Front and Back Matter. I can’t tell you exactly what to include here as many novels appear to be somewhat flexible in the layout. Look at a few books on your shelves to get an idea of what is required.

If you previously published an eBook, be aware that you will need to modify your front matter. As I mentioned back in Step 2 of the process, you will need to go to your copyright page and ensure that it reads correctly for a “print” book. For example, if you have a statement that says, “Please purchase only authorized electronic editions . . .” in your eBook document, or anything else that would pertain only to eBook editions, reword the copyright page to suit a print novel. And you will need to enter a new ISBN number on the copyright page for your POD book, as well; the one you used for your eBook cannot be used again. Therefore, if you haven’t got one yet you may want to look into that at this point. I can’t comment on how to go about that because in Canada, where I live, getting an ISBN requires a different process than for the U.S. (If you live in Canada, email me or just use a search engine to learn how to go about getting your own ISBN number(s) free of charge and relatively painlessly.) If you have already obtained your ISBN and have laid out your front matter, you may want to skip to the next blog post.

Typically your front matter may consist of a few pages:
1)    If you have them, one page may consist of review excerpts or endorsements by fellow writers.
2)    That page may be followed by one containing a teaser or short excerpt from the book. This portion of a scene should contain a good hook or demonstrate what your book is about.
3)    Follow that with a Title Page which will include your title and author’s name.
4)    Then a copyright page on which you will list your copyright, disclaimer (“. . . is a work of fiction. Names, characters . . . are the product of the author’s imagination . . .” You know the one.) Publisher and ISBN, rights (“All rights reserved . . .”), etcetera.
5)     If desired, you may follow that with an Acknowledgements page to thank the people who may have helped you with research, editing, or what have you.
6)    And lastly you may wish to create a Dedication page. Or some combine the Dedication on the same page as the acknowledgements.

If you have yet to create your front matter and have nothing in place prior to the beginning of your first chapter, the following are the instructions for getting this information in place: Go to the very top of the first page of your document, hold down Ctrl and hit the Enter key to add a blank page BEFORE Chapter One. Hit enter to move to the next line of this blank page. If you cannot see a Paragraph Mark on the screen when you hit the Enter key, turn on Show/Hide. (On your Home tab, click the Show/Hide button which looks like a paragraph mark.) This will show your formatting characters. Hit Enter a couple of times on the blank page that now precedes Chapter One to add a couple of paragraph marks. (Don’t worry about the extra space. You can delete them a little later when you format your Front Matter.)

Then, using some published novels from your book shelves as a guide, format the front matter for your novel. Don’t forget to be creative on your title page. Choose some interesting fonts, and perhaps mix and match. I often choose a different font for the first character of a word.

If you have difficulty getting your font to layout properly on your title page, you may have to put the first character of each word in a text box, and then create another text box for the remainder of each word of your title so that all the aspects of the title that you want to format differently are in separate text boxes. (Just choose “Simple Text Box” from Text Box drop-down on the Insert Menu) Putting letters or portions of words into separate text boxes allows you to drag them into positions which aren’t possible if you keep the characters together.

You need to ensure, however, that the text boxes do NOT extend into your margins or you will receive an error message from CreateSpace when you upload.

When you start working within the text boxes, you may have to right click on the text box and play with the formatting of the boxes in “more layout options” or “wrap text”. For example, if the text, by default, shows up in the box with an indent, remove it by dragging your ruler mark over or you won’t get your title to format properly in the box. Also, if there is a border on the box, you will need to remove it so that there is no line around the text box. Right click, click “format shape”, choose “line color”, the select “no line”.

The screen capture below shows the five overlapping text boxes that I used to create the title page for DANGER’S KISS.

Formatting your title page can take a lot of time depending on how creative you want to be. Typically your title will be about a third of the way down the page with the author’s name along the bottom of the page. However, there are other formats so choose what you think looks best for your title and author name.

Next create your Back Matter. This may include a “Letter to the Reader”, a brief biography of the author, and review excerpts of previous books. Once again, check a few published novels on your book shelves to get ideas of the kinds of things you might like to do. If you did not include a list of “other novels” written by the author in the Front Matter, then you may want to include it in the Back Matter.

And that’s it for this session. Stay tuned for the next blog which will discuss adding your section breaks so that we can move on to headers. Have fun!

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Typically in print novels, chapter headings are larger, may have a larger or more showy font, and will start about half-way down the page. So let’s get started.

First, activate your Navigation Menu on the Left of the screen if it is not already open. To do that, click the View Tab at the top of your screen and in the Show Group on the ribbon menu, click the box beside Navigation Pane. If you previously formatted all your headings as some type of heading style, they may all show on the left as clickable items that allow you to navigate through your document more quickly. If they are not there yet, you will need to scroll through your manuscript to accomplish the next step. Once each chapter heading is formatted, it should show in the Navigation Pane as a clickable menu item.

Depending on the style of text you’ve chosen for your chapter heading—“Chapter One”, “Chapter 1” or “ONE”—or what have you, select the chapter heading text. Then choose a Style in the Styles menu at the top that you think would look nice for a Chapter Heading. I used “Heading 2”.

You will now need to modify your formatting. This formatting may have to change slightly at a later time in order to keep the bottom of the text on the first page of your chapter lined up with the bottom of the text on the second page. However, I am going to show you the settings that work most consistently for me.

With your Chapter Heading highlighted, click on the Home tab, and then click on the tiny diagonal arrow in the bottom right corner of the Paragraph Group on your menu bar. First, near the top of the pop-up box, under General, beside the word Alignment, click in the drop down box and choose “Centered”. Choose “Level 1” in the Outline drop down box. In the Indentation Section, all boxes should be set to zero indent. Now, in the Spacing Section near the bottom of the Pop-up, click in the box beside “Before”, and type in 150 pts. Then click in the box beside “After”, and type in 15 pts. Move over to Line Space, and select “Single”.

The “After” setting” and the “single” setting are the ones that I have had to adjust in the past in order to ensure that the text at the bottoms of my pages stayed squared and aligned. But because text spacing may still change based on the following settings, wait to check until you have completed today’s instructions.

Next, you may want to change the font for your chapter headings. In a print book, you can choose a slightly, more showy font. Look through some books on your shelves and see what you think. In my Western novel, I chose a Western looking font for each chapter heading. You will probably want to increase the size slightly as well. My chapter headings range in size between 18 pts. to 35 pts. depending on the font and style chosen. Try not to create a heading with a mix of fonts and sizes or you will have to change each chapter heading individually rather than using the Word’s style feature and this can result in a lot of extra work if changes are required.

Once you’ve chosen your font and have completed the formatting, and you are happy with the appearance of your chapter heading, you can create a new style based on the one you’ve chosen. Name it whatever you like. I’ve named mine “Chapter Headings” so there can be no mistake about what I use it for. To do that, highlight the Chapter Heading you have just formatted. On the Home tab, click on the diagonal arrow at the bottom right corner of the Styles Menu in MS Word. You will see a pop-up box with three icons at the bottom. The first icon on the left is New Style. Click that.

Type a name for your style, and note that it should be based on Heading 2 or whatever original style you chose. All the formatting you’ve chosen should show at the bottom in a summary format. You may choose to click the “automatically update” button if you wish. I do NOT choose that setting. However, it is a personal preference.

Automatically update means that if you decide to change the formatting on something to which you’ve applied that particular style, the style will automatically change, and everything formatted with it will update to the new formatting. I didn’t choose this because, occasionally, as I’m trying things, I make a change that I don’t want to carry through immediately. So rather than use “automatically update”, when I’ve made a change to the formatting that I’m happy with and that I DO I want to carry through to all the other Chapter Headings, I choose to right click on the style on the top menu and choose “Update to match selection”.

When you’ve finished updating the settings for your new font style in this menu, Click OK.

Now go through your manuscript and highlight EACH chapter heading, then click on the new style you’ve created. This will format the Chapter Headings correctly so that they all start approximately half way down the page. If you’ve chosen a fairly large font size, and you’ve chosen to type out the words (Chapter Twenty-Seven) go back through your manuscript when you are finished to ensure that none of the headings wrap onto two lines due to the length of the headings. If they do, you may have to adjust your font size slightly. Make your change, then right click the style at the top of the page and choose “update to match selection” to ensure that all of your chapter headings are the same font size.

Once finished that, check to ensure the text at the bottom of the first page of your chapter is still in line and a squared with the text on the second page of your chapter. If it is, you’re good to go. If not, you may need to return to the “After” setting and the “spacing” setting for your chapter heading and make some small adjustments until you are happy that the text at the bottoms of the pages is in line.

Next you will notice that the first paragraph of each chapter in a printed novel is NOT indented. That means you need to go through your manuscript to the start of each chapter and remove the indents. Place your cursor just before the first letter of the first word of the first paragraph, then look at your ruler guide at the top of the screen just under your ribbon menu, and click on the little triangle on the top of the ruler, and drag to the left until it is even with the bottom triangle on the ruler. (If your rulers aren’t showing, you will need to activate them. To do this, look at the right hand side of your screen. At the top of the side scroll bar, you will see an “up” arrow, a hand, and above that a very miniature version of a ruler with the two triangular guides. You need to click on the small ruler icon to activate your rulers).

You may also want to format the first character of the first word of a chapter with “Drop Caps”. However, this is optional; many novels do not use drop caps. If it is your desire to use drop caps, place your cursor before the first word of the first paragraph or your chapter, select the “Insert” tab at the top, and in the Text Icon Group, choose Drop Cap. I didn’t like the “in margin” appearance—and have never seen it in an actual book—so I went with “Dropped”. I then went to the bottom and in Drop Cap Options, I chose two lines to drop rather than three as I didn’t like the appearance of a three-line drop in a small 5” x 8” book. However, you will have to repeat this entire process at the beginning of EACH chapter as I could not find a way to set the 2-line drop as a default setting. If anyone out there knows how to change that, please let me know.

Please note that, if your chapter begins with conversation, the opening quote will appear as the dropped cap. You will need to delete your opening quote before selecting the drop cap option. Then, once you have dropped the cap for your chapter, you will need to follow a few steps to replace your opening quote:

1) insert a small text box
2) remove the indent that may show up as default by dragging the triangle to the left on your ruler
3) type your opening quote mark
4) enlarge the text size to make it look similar to the size of the dropped cap letter
5) re-size the text box to make it as small as possible while still showing the opening quote you need
6) drag your text box into place just in front of your dropped cap.

And that’s it for this session. I hope you find the instructions helpful. The next thing we will be covering is the addition of what’s called “front and back matter” and how to use “Section Breaks” to ensure that each chapter starts on an odd page.

Have a wonderful day.

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For fiction, most people choose a Serif font like Georgia, Garamond, Palatino, or Bookman rather than a Sans Serif font like Arial. I chose Georgia in 11-point size. If you choose Garamond, you might want to go with 12-point size as its appearance is slightly smaller. Why choose Serif? Generalizing, it’s because, for the most part, the Sans Serif (i.e.: Arial) fonts look better on screen while the Serif fonts (i.e.: Georgia) are best for print media.

So, unless your manuscript is already formatted in an acceptable font, you need to change your font to the one you’ve chosen for print media. Your temptation will be to simply “Select All” and change your font. If your entire novel is written in one font, that can work and is relatively easy, but DON’T DO IT YET, read the next few paragraphs first. There are a number of other things that need to be formatted as well, and, as a result, I prefer to use the following method that allows me to make multiple setting changes at once.

If you have multiple fonts in your novel, or even a single font that is formatted in different ways (i.e.: a lot of italic paragraphs), or myriad different formats ranging from centered to right justified or what have you, you need to ensure that your styles are not overwritten by another style. Therefore, the safer option is to use the “Search and Replace” menu option.

Before you begin the next process, write down what your current document’s settings are so you will know what requires replacement. You need to know the font name and font size, line spacing, text alignment (Is it “left” or “justified”?), “Before and After” paragraph spacing and “First line” indent measurement. (I am presuming here that you did not make the mistake of using the tab key to indent the first line of every paragraph. If you did, you will need to remove those tab marks before proceeding. To do that, on the Home Tab, in the Editing Group, click on Replace. Place your cursor in the Find what box and then click the Format Button on the bottom left and choose Tabs, Left. Then place your cursor in the Replace with box, press the delete key to ensure the box is empty so that your tabs will be replaced with nothing. Then click Replace All.)

Okay, moving on . . . as you’ve no doubt noted, print novels have text that is fully “justified”, meaning that the right edge of your paragraphs is even rather than ragged. Therefore we are going to set the alignment  and make a few other setting changes at the same time that we change the font. To change your settings, on the Home Tab, in the Editing Group, choose Replace. With your cursor in the “Find what” box of the “Replace” pop-up box, click on the “More” button.

In the Format drop-down box, choose Font, and select the font you want to replace. You do not need to choose a font style (i.e.: Regular) and size unless you want to replace specific passages of text that are formatted in a particular manner. For example, if you have centered text that you want to replace separately, you might choose Times New Roman, italics, 12 pt., centered. If, however, you want to replace ALL Times New Roman text, then leave both the style and font size blank.

Next we want to replace the ragged right edge with “Justified” text. With your cursor still in the “Find what” box, click on the Format button again and from the drop-down box choose “Paragraph”. On the Indents and Spacing Tab, in the Alignment box, choose “Left” or whatever your alignment was when you wrote it down above. Don’t click OK yet. Now, if the first line Indent for your paragraphs is currently set at anything other than the measurement that you have chosen as the correct indentation for your POD novel, click on the drop-down box under “Special” and choose “First Line”. Then in the box just to the right of it, choose the measurement that you are replacing. (i.e.: If your current indent is .5”, choose that.)

Move down to the Spacing Section of the box and, if you currently have “Before and After” paragraph space in your document, enter those values. To the right, in the Line Spacing box, if the spacing is anything other than what you desire in your POD novel, enter the current value. (i.e.: if your current document is double-spaced, enter “Double”. Now you can click OK in the Paragraph box and allow it to close so that you can return your attention to the Replace pop-up box.

Place your cursor in the box beside “Replace with”. Click on the Format button and select Font from the drop-down menu. In the pop-up box, use the scroll bar to find the font you’ve chosen for your book, and select it. Only select a style and size if they are pertinent to replacing specific passages of text. Click OK.

With your cursor still in the Replace with box, click the Format button again and choose Paragraph. In the Alignment drop-down box, choose “Justified”. Under “Special” choose “First Line” and set your indent to .25” or your chosen size. I measured the indent of a few of the books on my shelves, took an average, and decided to use the .25” size for my novels. A larger setting may look better in larger books.

Now, move down to the Spacing section and ensure that the boxes for “Before and After” are blank or set to zero. To the right, in the Line Spacing box, choose either “Single” (in which case the next box to the right stays blank), or choose “Exactly” and in the box to the immediate right select a size that is 2 to 4 points larger than the font you’ve chosen. (i.e.: if you chose Georgia 11 pt. as your font, you can choose Exactly 13, 14 or 15 pt. for the spacing.) Choosing “Exactly” over “Single” and a larger point size than your font will result in a slightly increased space between the lines of your text and is the recommended format for print books. Click OK and watch your document change almost instantly.

Just a couple of additional comments though: When I adjusted my line spacing I found that, to the naked eye, it made very little difference over ordinary single-spacing. I printed off a page of each format to compare, and the 13 point setting added one line per page. However, since I want my books to look as professionally done as possible, I did, ultimately, go with the “Exactly 13 pt.” setting.

Also, please note  that, if you choose more showy fonts for your front and back matter or enlarge the headings of chapters, you may need to highlight those fonts and change the spacing for them from the “Exactly” setting you have for your main text to something that works for those fonts. If you forget to do this, you can end up with the bottoms of letters being cut off and unreadable. “Single” spacing often works, and then if you want a blank space after the text, use your paragraph settings in the “Before and After” section to enter a point value for spacing.

All right, now, the last thing you need to do is scroll through your document and check for any passages of text that may have missed being formatted due to different settings. If you find any, repeat the Search and Replace function for that particular formatting.

Your novel should now be looking much more like a book for print media. Congratulations! Although there are still a number of steps to go, you are making headway.

And that’s it for this session. I hope you found the information helpful. Take care until next time.

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First, go to the Page Layout menu. In the Page Setup Group, select the small triangle with the arrow in the bottom right corner. Ensure you are on the Paper Tab, and type in the size you’ve decided on for your novel. I chose 5” x 8” because I think that particular size is easier for readers to hold and to keep on their shelves. You may feel differently. In the drop down box near the bottom ensure that the setting applies to the “Whole Document” NOT “This point forward” or “This section”.

Now, still using the same pop-up box, click on the Margins tab, ensure that you are in “Portrait mode” and that the formatting applies to the “Whole Document” in the dropdown box near the bottom.

Based on the estimated page numbers and paper size you’ve chosen for your book, set the margins and gutter according to CreateSpace guidelines.

My novels have all been right around the 400 page mark, or just under. For the most part, I set: .75” top margin with header margins set at .35”, bottom margin at .5” with footer margin at .35”, right margin at .5”, and .75” left margin. Ensure that the Gutter position is “left”.

I chose to make my bottom margin smaller than the top because I chose to include my page numbers in my headers. (You can see an example header below: author name at the top of one page, book title at the top of the other. We will cover how to create these headers in a later step.) If you choose to put your page number in a footer centered at the bottom, you may want to set your bottom margin slightly larger than .5” to increase the space between your page number and the text on the page. I’ve seen .6” and .75” used. It’s up to you and how you feel about the appearance of your page numbers in relation to your text.

Although some of you will likely also want to enter a gutter measurement, I didn’t see anything in the CreateSpace guidelines that specified this. In fact, in their guidelines, they appear to use the terms “gutter margin” and “inside margin” interchangeably. Since their inside margin requirement is obviously larger, one can assume that the gutter measurement is included in the required minimum inside measurement. However, depending on how close my page count was to the maximum limit for the specific measurements, I sometimes added a gutter measurement of .12”.

Now, in the “multiple pages” drop down box, choose “mirror margins” and then in the drop down box at the bottom, ensure, once again, that your changes apply to the “Whole document”. It may sound like I’m over-stating the “whole document” thing, but–-particularly if and when you have sections in place–-this box can change without warning. If you make a change that only applies to a single section and don’t catch it until later, it can cause a lot more work in the long run. So take my word for it; check this box each and every time.

Before you click OK and allow this pop-up box to close, you will need to click on the Layout Tab to enter your header and footer margins of .35″ each if that is what you’ve chosen. Or if you’re squeezed for space you may want to enter the footer margin at .25″ which will allow you to set your bottom margin slightly smaller, at say .4″. While on the Layout Tab enter a check mark in the boxes beside “Different First Page” and “Different Odd and Even Pages” as these settings will come into play when we create our headers and footers. Ensure that the drop down box at the bottom says “whole document”. Then click OK.

Once you have completed most of the formatting to come, you can go back and adjust your left margin size if your page count increases or decreases beyond your best estimate at this point. If you do this, however, ensure you make your margin adjustments BEFORE you go through and do your manual “widow and orphan” control. If not, you will end up re-doing those steps to accommodate the new margins.

Happy formatting!  I’ll see you for Step 4 soon.

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First, open your MS Word document and, if you had a cover image imbedded on the front page, delete it.

Click on the Home Tab, and in the Paragraph Group on your ribbon menu, select the Show/Hide button (it looks like the on the mark at the end of a paragraph.)

If you had a clickable “Table of Contents” in your Epub document, delete that page. Most printed fiction novels don’t include a Table of Contents. If you decide you do want to keep one, then you will need to reformat it with page numbers. I have no instructions for that process since I opted to delete mine. If you did not have a TOC in your eBook, then you may skip the next two steps.

Next, delete the hyperlinks on chapter headings that you had established for your clickable TOC in your eBook. To do this you will need to go to each chapter heading, right click on the heading, and select delete hyperlink.

Then, go to the Insert Tab on your menu, click on Bookmark in the Links Group on the ribbon menu, and delete all the bookmarks that were created for your hyperlinks. In the pop-up box, you will need to select each bookmark and click the delete button.

Now, if you have Front Matter from an already published eBook, go to your copyright page and ensure that it reads correctly for a “print” book rather than an eBook. For example, if you have a statement that says, “Please purchase only authorized electronic editions . . .” in your eBook document, or anything else that would pertain only to eBook editions, reword the copyright page to suit a print novel.

If you have MS Word set to handle “widows and orphans” for you, turn that feature OFF. It leaves large blank white spaces at the bottoms of pages and keeps your text from being nicely squared on the page. We will handle widows and orphans manually in a later step. To turn off the feature, on the Home tab, in the Paragraph Group, click on the tiny diagonal arrow in the bottom right corner. Then click on the “Line and Page Breaks” tab and ensure that the box beside “widow/orphan control” does NOT have a check mark in it.

And that’s it for this post. Stay tuned for my next blog in which we will cover page sizing and margins.

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Before you can begin the process, you need to decide what size your book will be. The traditional mass market-size paperback is not available for Print-on-Demand. I chose 5” x 8” because that was the smallest size available and the closest to the mass market-size so readers should still find it comfortable to hold, and it should still fit on most bookshelves. However, you may have other considerations, so you need to decide what size works best for you.

Some other things you need to consider when choosing your novel’s size:

• One, the smaller the size you choose, the more pages are required and the thicker the book will be.
• Two, the higher the page count, the more expensive the book is to produce. Usually this is not significant unless you are jumping two or three sizes which would result in a substantially different page count, but it must be considered none-the-less. As a general guideline, you can expect your single-spaced eBook manuscript page count in MS Word to approximately double in 5″ x 8″ POD format. i.e.: a 200 page manuscript will be close to 400 pages in paperback form.  
• And three, the more expensive the book is to print, the higher you must price it in order to generate a return. This is particularly important if you plan on using CreateSpace’s “Extended Distribution” program. I’ve opted out of this initially. If I choose, I can opt in at a later date once I complete the investigation of my options in that regard.

Next,  based on the size you’ve chosen, spend some time playing with the CreateSpace “Royalty Calculator”  to see where you will have to price your book. Is there much difference between the options? As I said above, I chose to forego Extended Distribution through CreateSpace in order to keep the price lower. Note that, on the CreateSpace royalty calculation page you can uncheck the GPB and Euro automatic pricing and price them individually yourself. It may be advantageous to set all prices so that they end with .49, .95 or .99 so that your pricing mimics common pricing models, but that’s something that can be addressed later. For now you are concerned with choosing the size for your novel. Once you have done that, you can move on to Step One of the formatting process in my next blog.

Have fun!

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I’ve also been working with a cover designer (Esther’s Designs) to update the cover on my suspense novel, DANGER’S KISS. I’m really liking the new version, so watch for it to show up early in the new year. Esther also did the cover for my Western novel BEYOND BETRAYAL, a design that I love.  I want to write more Westerns so maybe someday I will get the opportunity to have her design another Western cover for me, too.

If you are a writer interested in print-on-demand, you may want to revisit this blog in the near future and watch for a series of posts on the process I’ve gone through to get my books properly formatted and uploaded to CreateSpace. Since people were asking me for details concerning the process, I decided a series of blog posts would be the perfect way to share the information.

And lastly, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best that 2013 has to offer. Happy Holidays!

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 Q/A’s:

What is the working title of your next book?

Until recently I was working on the sequel to IN DESTINY’S ARMS, working title IN RENEGADE ARMS. However, that one is just not coming together the way I want it to, so I’ve set it aside for the moment to concentrate on a story that has been calling to me for a while. The working title of this one is OUTLOOK STATION, but that is not likely to be the final title.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It’s actually been in my idea file for years, but I remember getting the idea after watching a Star Trek episode, so that was where the kernel of the idea came from. My OUTLOOK STATION is more of a BABYLON 5 meets BATTLESTAR GALACTICA story with some romantic elements, too, of course.

What genre does your book fall under?

Futuristic or Science Fiction Romance.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Channing Tatum would probably suit the part of the hero very well. Scarlett Johansson or a blonde Anne Hathaway would be great for the part of Dr. Eve Kassian, my heroine.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When a man suddenly reappears forty years after his inexplicable disappearance spouting dire warnings of an imminent invasion, can Dr. Eve Kassian convince the command of Outlook Station to take a chance on believing him?

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published. Now that I’ve learned the process by re-issuing all of my out-of-print formerly-traditionally published novels, I see no reason to do it any other way. This will be the first of my novels that won’t have been traditionally published first.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It’s still in progress, but each of my novels usually takes me about 9 months to a year writing part-time. I’ve only returned to writing in the last year, however, after a number of years hiatus to deal with family issues.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I can’t think of another at the moment, although I know there must be numerous novels that would compare. The closest among my own novels would probably be IN FUGITIVE ARMS and IN DESTINY’S ARMS.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’ve always liked this story and its time has come. No particular inspiration of which I’m aware except that it’s been in my thoughts again lately.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

If you like an action-filled plot complete with soldiers, aliens, and space battles then OUTLOOK STATION may interest you. And, as in many of my books, my hero and heroine have to navigate a minefield of danger while struggling against all the angst and issues that come with falling in love.

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