I recently mentioned to an acquaintance that a friend of mine was experiencing a difficult life situation, and that although she was handling it very admirably, I was really worried about her. My acquaintance asked me how I knew this woman that I had referred to, and I told her that she was one of my friends on Facebook. My acquaintance laughed and said that Facebook friends weren’t real friends and I was wasting my time becoming involved with the ins and outs of their every day lives.

So the question of the day is: Are Facebook friends real?

Of course they are real since they do exists. At least most of them. There are some people out there with phony accounts but this blog is not going to address those particular voyeurs. The question this blog is going to address, isn’t whether or not these friends who we will most likely never meet in person are real people, but are they real friends?

In my opinion the answer is yes. These people are ABSOLUTELY my real friends. They’ve shared their ups and downs with me. I’ve worried about them and prayed for them when they have faced medical challenges, relationship issues, job losses, and other life challenges. I rejoiced with them during the special moments in their lives and laughed with them during their silly moments.  I’ve gone on vacation with them (vicariously through photos) and they in turn have shared my ups and downs and have traveled with me.

I feel like I know some of the people I have met on Facebook more intimately than I know some of the people I run into in my every day life. I care about the friends I have come to know through social media and in turn I feel like they care about me. So are Facebook Friends real? I guess we each have to decide that for ourselves, but I know that my life is fuller and richer due to the friends I share photos and updates with every day of my life.

So the question of the day is are Facebook friends real? Comment below for a chance to win your choice of a Kathi Daley Tote. I have four patterns left to choose from including Hopscotch Homicide, Grimm’s Furry Tail, Matrimony Meltdown, and Much Ado About Felines. I will announce the winner on my Facebook page on Saturday.

http://www.facebook.com/kathidaleybooks

Website http://www.kathidaley.com

The Daley Weekly. http://eepurl.com/NRPDf

So a writer, an editor, and a publisher walk into a bar… Seriously, isn’t this a great title for a blog? It’s too bad I don’t have a joke to go along with it. I guess I’ll have to write one at some point but I’m not really all that good at jokes. I’m not even sure why I started this weeks blog in that manner, but those are the first words that popped into my head when I sat down to write this so I went with them. Going with random thoughts really is what writing is all about. Sometimes you follow the spontaneous words and they lead you down a path to a plot, and other times, like this one I suspect, they lead you nowhere.

I will say that several of my plots have originated with a book cover or a title and not with a plan or even an idea of what I wanted to write about. I recently published The Legend of Tabby Hollow. When I came up with the title, with the help of my friends on the Kathi Daley Books Group page, I did not have a plot in mind. I knew the book would be a Halloween book but that was as far as I had gotten. When I sat down to write the book I knew I had to incorporate the title, so I created a magical place on Madrona Island known as The Hollow.

The book starts out with the following passage:

The hollow is a mystical place located in the center of Madrona Island. Given the rocky cliffs that encircle the area, it is protected from the storms that ravage the shoreline. The hollow is uninhabited except for the cats who reside in the dark spaces within the rocks. While most of the island’s residents stop short of referring to the hollow as haunted, it is widely accepted that not everything that happens there can be explained.

From there I just kept writing until I had a book.

Another example of starting a book from a point other than a plot idea can be explored by considering a cover. Often times I design a cover long before I ever sit down to write the book. Once I have a cover I then need to make sure that the content of the book matches the cover. This has been true with many covers, the most recent, Much Ado About Felines. I saw the graphic with the carriage and knew I had to have it. Jessica and I designed a cover, and then when I sat down to write I thought to myself, “Self, the plot needs to revolve around a ball.” I won’t say the entire plot evolved from the cover, but a lot of it did. And the story of the old man that everyone loved, originated with the cat which I’d already placed on the cover and not the man. I had designed the cover with two cats instead of one so I had to give the second cat something to do. Hence the side story of the old man and the cat who watched over him.

So back to my joke. A writer, an editor, and a publisher walked into a bar…

Nope I have nothing. Who wants to take a stab at it? Comment below with the conclusion to the joke and I will give the best answer a $25 Amazon gift card.

Not a joke teller (Yeah me neither). Comment anyway and I will pick a random winner to receive a paperback or Kindle copy of the Kathi Daley Book of their choice. Non US Kindle only.

This month I celebrate my second anniversary as a published author. As I sit in quiet reflection, I can’t help but ask myself if I could have imagined even in my wildest dreams that I would come so far and meet so many awesome people in such a short period of time. When I uploaded Halloween Hijinks for the first time my expectations were actually very low. I figured that my family and friends would by a copy and maybe a few others would stumbled across it and be willing to take a chance on a new author. To say that I was absolutely blown away when I realized that I’d sold over 3,000 books that first month would be putting it mildly.

This is the first cover:

Of course a little success can fuel a fire, and once I realized that I might actually be able to make a living as an author, I dove into the self publishing pool and never looked back. The Legend of Tabby Hollow publishes on September 15 two years after Halloween Hijinks. In that two year period I have published 32 books and, in all, have over 300,000 books in circulation across the world.

So what does this mean for my goals for the upcoming year? In September of 2013 I just wanted to sell a hundred books. In September of 2014 I hoped to expand and add a couple of new series. I now have 4 series. Zoe Donovan came first and will always be near and dear to my heart, followed by Pumpkins in Paradise shortly after. In 2015 I added The Whales and Tails Series and The Seacliff High Series.

Halloween covers for all 4 series.

I’ve actually done quite a bit of thinking about what to do next. I’d like to continue to grow and evolve as an author without really giving up anything that I already have. (Yup I know that is probably unrealistic.)

I’d love to add a new series but I have to ask myself if I can handle 5?  Or would a new series require me to wrap up one that I already have?

I’d love to do more reader events. I have a lot of people write to me and ask if I will be at this conference or that book signing. I have done little in this area up to this point due to the time commitment, but I do think that adding a few reader events will be one of my goals for 2016. I’m not quite ready to announce them yet, but I have signed up for two events in 2016 which I will be talking about on my Facebook page and in my newsletter during the next month or so. I have two others that I am considering as well.

I’ve not had an agent or publicist up to this point, choosing to do everything on my own, but I have recently sighed with an agent to explore the area of audio books for The Whales and Tails Series. If this works out I may expand this to the other series as well.

I am going to Alaska in October to do some additional research for the search and rescue series I have been talking about for the past year. I am also tossing around the idea of expanding my reach by publishing romance novels as well as cozy mysteries. I have an idea for a romance series that I need to noodle on for a bit longer before I commit, but I grew up on Harlequin Romances and would love to see my name on one someday.

As for expanding my paperback distribution, this is a subject that will take a lot of consideration. On one hand I have people ask all the time why my books aren’t in bookstores or why they aren’t available in more libraries. The easy answer is mass market publishing. In order to have your book in the larger bookstores, or chains such as Target, you really need to sign with a publisher who has an agreement with these retail outlets. Is this something I am considering for the future? Maybe. I will admit that I’m sort of a control freak. I was approached early on about the idea of publishing the Whales and Tails Series through one of the “Big 5” publishing houses but in the end I decided not to. I like being able to choose my own titles and design my own covers. I like owning my own work, and I don’t like having someone telling me that I need to cut this or add that. However, doing a series for a publishing house with mass market distribution would open a few doors, so like I’ve said several times during the course of this blog, maybe????

So there you have it. I will admit that my goals for 2015-2016 are still a bit fuzzy but I am working on them and you know I will keep you all updated. Please comment below to be entered to win a kindle or paperback copy of The Legend of Tabby Hollow (non US Kindle only). Any ol comment will do so have at it.

So, it is Thursday evening and I just realized that I never got around to writing my blog for the week and it is supposed to post in a few hours. No worries, I tell myself, just sit down and write it now. So here I am sitting at the same computer I’ve spent the entire day sitting at and I can’t seem to come up with a single original idea. I’ve decided to take my own advice and just write. The blog is titled Random Thoughts and Meaningless Musings and that is what you are about to get. I figure I’ll just start writing and we’ll see where we end up. Game? There is a giveaway at the end so just bear with me.

It’s windy outside. Really windy. And cold. Fall is definitely in the air. I like the wind. I find the sound it makes as it rustles through the leaves soothing. Of course I don’t like super hard winds since I have like a million really tall pines surrounding my house, but a steady yet gentle breeze is nice.

Interesting side note that popped into my head as I chatted about the sound of the wind, I sleep with my fan on and the sliding door to my bedroom partially open 365 days a year. I like the white noise from the fan and I like to sleep in a cold room. I might be part vampire. My husband has literally had to shovel snow out of the bedroom a few times. I’m not kidding. I mean it’s not deep but it has been known to blow in when the leaves from the trees have fallen and no longer provide a barrier.

Speaking of trees, the trees in my yard are beginning to turn. I know that within a few weeks my landscape will look like the photo I am attaching of my yard last September. Tahoe is beautiful in the fall. The mountainside is covered in red, yellow, and bright orange. It is simply amazing.

Bon Jovi is singing in the background as I bore you with my thoughts. I wish I could say that Jon Bon Jovi was actually in my home serenading me, but it’s just a recording. It’s My Life is currently playing. I really love this song. It is one of my favorites. I especially love the part that says: “It’s my life, it’s now or never, I ain’t gonna live forever.” I think that is an important lyric. I have found that in life it is important not to put stuff off. If you have a dream or a goal work now to make it happen. And yes I do mean work. Most things worth having don’t come easily so don’t wait around for your dreams to fall into your lap cause they probably won’t.

(Oh yeah he’ll do!)

Hum, what now? Let’s talk candles. At this moment I have an apple scented candle burning in the background. It smells really nice but I think I’m about ready for pumpkin. I love everything pumpkin. Pumpkin candles, pumpkin desserts, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin decorations. October is by far my favorite of all the months and Halloween in by far my favorite of all the holidays. I’m known as the decorating queen in my family. I love to bring the feel of the season into my home so I change out tabletop displays, placemats, and other adornments on a regular basis.

Of course thoughts of pumpkins leads to thoughts of Halloween. I love everything about the holiday. I especially love to go trick-or-treating with the grandkids. I make a huge pot of chili which warms us from the inside before we head out. There is a neighborhood in Tahoe that is “the” neighborhood to trick-or-treat in. Everyone really does it big in this neighborhood and the decorations are as awesome as the energy generated by thousands of kids going from door to door. I’ve attached a couple of photos from Halloweens past of my grandkids. Aren’t they cute!

Echo is sitting next to me staring at me. I’m pretty sure he is concerned that I have lost my mind and he may be right. One thing is certain and that is he wants me to quit for the day. It has been a long day and I am tired. I can hear my husband and grandkids upstairs in the kitchen so I am betting it is time for dinner. I’m not sure what is on the menu for today but it smells good. So goodnight to all of you and hopefully next week I will be back with something a bit more coherent.

Hugs!!!

Giveaway: Comment below to be entered to win a Halloween in Paradise Mug. I will choose a winner Saturday morning. I will post the winner to both this page (in a comment) and on my main Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/kathidaleybooks