Author Archives: LM Preston

LM. Preston was born and raised in Washington, DC. An avid reader, she loved to create poetry and short-stories as a young girl. With a thirst for knowledge she attended college at Bowie State University, and worked in the IT field as a Techie and Educator for over sixteen years. She started writing science fiction under the encouragement of her husband who was a Sci-Fi buff and her four kids. Her first published novel, Explorer X - Alpha was the beginning of her obsessive desire to write and create stories of young people who overcome unbelievable odds. She loves to write while on the porch watching her kids play or when she is traveling, which is another passion that encouraged her writing.

Indie Publishing Lessons Learned

Whew, the release date of my second book has come and shortly gone. I’m not such a newbie now when it comes to writing and publishing. I can honestly say, I’m stronger, better and have a totally different view of being an author and one of an Indie or Small Press publishing company. Over a year…

Why Be a Beta Reader?

One of the most important parts of my writing process is to find beta readers. Oh, there’s different types of beta readers and all of which I use for different reasons. They are indispensable in the process of getting your writing in shape. YOUR STORY AND THE READER’S Oh, yeah, there is always more than…

Three Faces of the ALA Conference

I visited the American Library Conference (ALA) in Washington, DC as an author, with my publisher and as a guest. I wanted to give my perspective from all sides regarding how great of experience this is for an author and a small publisher. This conference had hundreds of vendors, publishers and librarians in attendance and…

How to Plan a Virtual Party

Planning a Virtual Book Launch, a Virtual Book Birthday or a Virtual Book Tour are great compliments to a book marketing campaign. They are free, effective, and can stick around in the blogsphere forever to immortalize your book and marketing efforts. Anyone can throw a Virtual Party for any reason and the set up is…

Each Author’s Creation Has Its Own Path

I’ve learned so much about being an author, selling my work and publishing in the last year that my head is spinning. One of the major lessons I’ve learned is that I control what I want to do with the works I produce. Each work has its own potential and it’s my job to create…

How to Speed Write

Nano (National Novel Writing Month) runs from November 1st-30th. It’s the writing frenzy where you kick out a large number of words to hopefully finish a novel in record time. Many people start the challenge and end up with a sizable number of pages by the end. Some are inspired to start writing for the…

On the Internet Means You Are On the Air

As an engineer who has built large applications and databases, I sometimes laugh at the naïveté of authors on the world ‘wild’ web. It’s not a safe place out there. Every site or ‘street’ you turn down has the ability to haunt you for life. When an author travels on the web, before and after…

Agents, Editors and Conferences

My experience as a volunteer for a recent MWA Writer’s Conference was rewarding and educational. LITERARY AGENTS They are the nicest people. Yeah writers you heard me, they rock. They work extremely hard, put in tons of overtime, and still have to be personable all of the time. Most of them that I’ve met personally…

The Challenges of an Indie Publisher

When I decided to become the first author of an independent Publisher, I had no idea what I was getting into. There are benefits to being part of a small independent publisher who’s just starting out, but there are also drawbacks. Since I’m the type of person who prefers to make lemonade out of lemons,…