My interview on "Your Book Is Your Hook!"

To read my post about my great experience on "Your Book Is Your Hook!," click here: "My Book Is My Hook!"

Click here to hear my interview on "Your Book Is Your Hook!" Jennifer and I talk about writing fiction, the future of publishing, and how you, too, can use your book as your hook.

I have had the pleasure of writing a guest blog called "It Takes a Village to Raise Book Sales" for the "Your Book Is Your Hook!" website.

Here's an excerpt:

So you want to write a novel or start your own publishing company. Both are worthwhile goals. And given the time and dedication, you can do both. But you may need more than a little help from your friends. You may need the help of a dazzling array of professionals.

Read the rest of the article here.

Enjoy!

My Book Is My Hook!

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jennifer S. Wilkov for an interview on her WomensRadio network program “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Jennifer’s program is a wonderful tool for anyone in any facet of the book industry. She has had interesting and enlightening conversations with experts from practically every aspect of publishing – public relations, writing, publishing –she’s covered it all!

Jennifer is warm, friendly, articulate, and a very intelligent host, and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with her and “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Her enthusiasm for the publishing industry is inspiring. In a world where the "author" demographic is not always understood, Jennifer offers a smart program that is specifically targeted for authors and industry professionals. I am thankful for this media outlet, and I encourage everyone to check out her program, Tuesdays at 9:00 AM on WomensRadio.

It is always a pleasure to take part in something so meaningful, and I hope you’ll check out “Your Book Is Your Hook!” My interview will air tomorrow (I’ll put links up when they become available, so check back!). In the meantime, check out this show, featuring author Victoria Moran , and make sure to look at the related articles below. I know you’ll enjoy them as I have.

Thank you, Jennifer, for a great opportunity!

ETA: The link to my interview is here! It will go live Tuesday, March 30, at 9 AM Eastern Time. Enjoy!

QA posted at Romance Reviews Today

I was recently interviewed by the lovely Patti at Romance Reviews Today, and the interview has been published! Check out the QA with Jill Shure and Romance Reviews Today to keep up with the best and brightest reviews on the web.

Thanks, Patti!

You Can Call Me Publisher

From my article "You Can Call Me Publisher" at MORE.com.:

At my age, you face unpleasant changes. You don't jump at the chance to drag on that one piece suit for a swim. You don't always sleep like a log. And your doctor may tell you that besides sleep apnea, you grind your teeth. You have small pains. You have birthdays you once associated with people who ate oatmeal for dinner. But there are good things, too. You finally know what makes you happy.

Read the rest of my article, "You Can Call Me Publisher" at MORE.com. Visit MORE.com for more great articles and ideas.

Q&A at Romance Author Buzz

I am beyond thrilled to have a Q&A featuring me at Romance Author Buzz , along with a chance to win copies of the books in the "Night" series.

Take a look! And special thanks to the blog admin, Marilyn, who is undergoing surgery soon. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Guest Blog at The Romance Book Club

I am humbled to be featured as a guest blogger at The Romance Book Club. My post, Love Knows No (Genre) Boundaries, discusses genres, subgenres, and how authors and readers handle them and respond to them.

Take a look!

Guest Blog at Romance Junkies

I am honored and thrilled to be featured as a guest blogger at the Romance Junkies blog. The community is rich with readers and authors, all passionate about reading.

You can check out my guest blog here: Why I Love Time-Travel Romance, or Why I Send Heroines Back 70 Years.

Check out Romance Junkies, a great resource for all things romance!

Americans and politics

A young woman told me the other day how different Americans are, how divided we are.

I don't think so. Most Americans, in fact most of the world, want the following: A good job with a sympathetic employer who treats them with respect; a safe, clean place to live; freedom to practice their own beliefs as long as no one else is harmed; enough to eat; and medical care when they are sick.

Anyone out there have a better plan?

Global Warming

I became fascinated about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s when I wrote my novel NIGHT GLITTER. How for thousands of years the American plains fed the buffalo. How later on when we had land grants and allowed immigrants to stake out claims across the west, we saw a rise in farming across this wild territory. Germans, who once lived in Russia, brought red wheat with them. The grain flourished under the harsh conditions. Towns grew. Life was good. During WWI, The Great War, the farmers did very well. Many grew wealthy thanks to good weather, plenty of rain, and the need for food by American troops. But conditions changed during the 1920s. The price of wheat plummeted. Farmers responded by planting more. Then the rain stopped. And the wind began to blow. Until housewives swept several feet of dirt off their floors each morning. And they covered their baby cribs with wet towels to save their children. But the wind blew away the topsoil until the land resembled the Sahara Desert. Babies died of black pneumonia. Cows delivered black milk. Houses were buried under the dust. Until the dust blew east reaching ships out in the Atlantic Ocean. And man learned that digging up the plains had a price. He had changed the earth. Digging up the wild grasses and overusing the top soil had resulted in deadly dust storms which emptied out whole towns, killed farm animals, children, and left families destitute.

Man has an impact on the earth. Visit the disappearing Alaska glaciers. Visit Mexico City. See what we have done. Learn how we overcame the Dust Bowl and how FDR helped before you believe man has no impact on the planet and Global Warming is a fallacy.

Head cold handled

I'm one of those people who gets a head cold and then it becomes a respiratory infection. But with the use of the following, I skipped this second horror by doing the following: I rinsed my nose out about four times a day with saline solution. I used Zicam nose swabs or mouth spray. I took airborne. And I used a facial machine which delivers hot steam to my mouth, nose, and eyes. Five days later, I'm almost completely well. This one time, I didn't have to go on antibiotics and spend weeks recovering. I am immensely relieved.

Try the above if you get sick.

Aren't we lucky

Ever wonder about the big plan? Who gave you the life you lead?

You could be living in Haiti, where hurricanes annually savage the country, poverty is common, and life has just taken a monumental turn for the worse. So whenever you feel a little blue, try looking at the world through the eyes of those less fortunate and ask yourself how you got to be so lucky.

Have a great day.

Fabulous book

Okay, I'm a little behind the times just discovering author Mal Peet. Yes, I'd heard of him. In fact, some time back, I bought his book, TAMAR. But it took me forever to organize my books and see that I had it.

I started reading it and he is brilliant. Years ago, it seems, I read more books like it. But this novel really is wonderful and certainly merited the Carnegie Medal. I'm only 98 pages in, but it's one of those novels that I can immerse myself in and forget the world around me.

What a treat.

Jill Shure
Author of:

NIGHT JAZZ
NIGHT GLITTER
NIGHT CAPS

I just read a new mystery.

For those of you who don't know, I host a monthly group here in Del Mar, California at a store called The Book Works. I just finished January's selection by Jacqueline Winspear called MESSENGER OF TRUTH. I really enjoyed this one. Not only is it a good mystery, but it's right up my alley because the story takes place in 1931, during The Great Depression, a period I know well.

I've written two novels about that era, NIGHT JAZZ and NIGHT GLITTER and I found this novel to be an excellent read and full of historical insights about The Great War (WWI) as well as deeper questions about the disparity between the rich and poor.

Anyone out there a fan of Ms. Winspear? What else would you recommend?

Just Smile

Living in Southern California, where the sun always shines, I am often shocked by how sour the people here can be. You smile at them here in San Diego County and they scowl back. Pick three people at a mall and smile at them and you will often get three dirty looks in response. Why? What does it cost to smile? If a stranger looks threatening, I can imagine a scowl might be a warning to back off. Otherwise, why not respond by smiling back. Recently, at a well known shop here in North County I smiled. Big mistake. Three dirty looks. I finally said to the third scowling woman, "Sorry I smiled. I didn't mean to offend you." And she suddenly became quite chatty.

Let's do ourselves a favor and smile. It feels good. It lifts your mood and helps others feel good, too.

Movies

I rarely endorse movies because everyone's taste is different. I do endorse books in my mystery readers group at the BOOKWORKS in Del Mar, CA. And the difference in opinions is always striking.

But I will say that I just saw a film this weekend called AN EDUCATION. It's British, full of surprises, and very engrossing. I heard wonderful things about it from friends first. They were not mistaken.

If you have a chance, see it.

Michigan - Ohio State Game

I'm watching the game and getting aggravated. But there was just a very nice turnover! Uh, oh! Ohio State just scored.

My new books are out.

It's the middle of November with Thanksgiving around the corner. And my new book NIGHT GLITTER has finally emerged in print, though it's going to be formally marketed in March of 2010. It takes place in the early 1930s during some of the worst years of the Great Depression. And though it's romantic, passionate, and sensual, it's also a raw depiction of the poignant challenges people faced in those days.

I recently saw PUBLIC ENEMY with Johnny Depp and this weekend we saw BONNIE & CLYDE, the new musical. Both fascinated me. I'm in love with the 1930s. It was such a gritty period where the public rallied behind bank robbers after losing their houses and farms to the banks. It was a romantic era, too. An era where people pushed hard to find a good time, a way to escape their daily drudgery. Maybe that's what Bonnie & Clyde really wanted: excitement. A ticket out of the Dust Bowl and small town America.

Back then, moonshine and bootleg gin along with the radio, movies, and roadhouses offered the public a few hours of relief from those hard times. But you had to work hard at finding diversions.

Next time I may tackle fashions from that era.

Health Care 2009

I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a member of congress. And I would love for the US to be able to cover all Americans. I just hope a national health insurance program would not work like the US Post Office or the current HMO systems we have in California which feel like national health care but definitely aren't free. Here in California, I often have to wait months to see my doctor or get a mammogram. Here, even though I have a PPO, my doctors are in an HMO. Many doctors here in California are in HMOs to deal with malpractice insurance. And many doctors have 2500 patients. That's right. They deal with a huge amount of patients -- quickly.

It can take weeks to get shots. Sometimes I deal with nurses, the first line of defense, who insist I go to a general practitioner for my immune disorder -- though my GP looks at me with a complete lack of comprehension regarding my disorder. This is how the HMO deals with me even though I'm on a private insurance plan and have been seeing a specialist in my HMO for over ten years. So if this is the future for us all, fasten your seat belts because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Yet, the French have national health insurance and been very successful with it. They have a progressive program which has given them top status in health care and the best population longevity in the world.

I just hope things improve here, because I miss the old days when you entered a hospital and your doctor came in to do "rounds" and visit you.

Now, if I call my HMO doctors to say I'm ill, they tell me to visit an emergency room. They don't say, "Come in right away."

Even with private insurance, I face hideous staph infections in a hospital and health care workers who refuse to wash their hands, a simple solution to infections.

Mystery Group

It recently occurred to me that the mystery group I facilitate has read quite a few books. I decided to see just how many we read and review just how different our selections have been. For our October selection, I just chose a Steven Saylor book, Last Seen In Massilia, a mystery of ancient Rome.

Before this we read: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, Missing Witness by Gordon Campbell , Farrier's Lane by Anne Perry, Straight Into Darkness by Faye Kellerman, Bride's Kimono by Sujata Massey, Secret Servant by Daniel Silva, & Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

The idea behind the group is to encourage people to read and enjoy doing so. We try to read a variety of mysteries while supporting a wonderful, small bookstore here in Del Mar, California, The Bookworks.

What I've really been up to.

Okay, I probably should say hello to the world on Twitter. But I may be too chatty today to keep things short. And since few people read my blogs, I figured it would be fine to place my thoughts here. I have been busy. Busy finishing three books about the Great Depression and The Roaring Twenties. I have been busy formatting, working on footnotes, endnotes, and those final annoying things that need to be done to complete a book.

And a movie treatment, too, for a producer who seems interested. Well, why not? Certain recent movies tie into my books. Like the new Johnny Depp film PUBLIC ENEMIES, a riveting film about John Dillinger. Or THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. Not to mention a laundry list of stories comparing today's economic crisis with the Great Depression. So perhaps my time travel novels back to the 1920s and 1930s are on the mark this time.

When writing them, I find myself immersed in another world. A world of glamorous clothes, radio shows, and musical films. I'm suddenly back in an era when a man wore a suit to pick up cigarettes or mow his lawn. A world where a woman had to slip on her girdle and stockings just to visit a grocery store. And poverty and disease crushed a quarter of the population after the stock market crashed.

Then it's back to my computer, my mobile phone, and blogging. And it feels like time travel. Some things are better now. Cheap communication, home entertainment in all its forms. But there are some things from the past which fascinate me. Like the music, the grand manners, a strong attempt to be a decent human being and care about others.

Back to work.