Miscellaneous News

Update on Self-Publishing Workshop

/ Marcia Meara / 3 Comments

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*Insert beeping noises, here*

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcasting with breaking news! Due to several factors, we have decided to reschedule the April 23 Self-Publishing Workshop at DeBary Hall. The new date will be October 8, from 1:00 until 4:00. The fall is a better time of year for this particular type of event, with fewer folks away on vacations and holiday travels.  If you live in this area and want to learn a bit more about how to self-publish your books, be sure to mark your calendars for October 8, and join us for the discussion. Reminders  will be forthcoming, as the new date approaches. 

And now, we return you to the program in progress.

Oh, and Happy Tewe’s Day! 🙂

Infographic: The Health Benefits of Reading

/ Marcia Meara / 8 Comments

This is beautiful and filled with great information. Please check it out. You’ll be glad you did! 🙂

Nicholas C. Rossis's avatarNicholas C. Rossis

Designer Raphael Lysander has produced this beautiful Infographic on the health benefits of reading, first published on his excellent blog. The image features statistics on how reading can help with stress relief, mental skill development, and forming relationships:

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If you wish to print this Infographic, it’s available on Zazzle.

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#Excerpt Week – Motherlove by Thorne Moore

/ Marcia Meara / 3 Comments

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Motherlove. Mrs Parish is universally believed to have murdered her missing baby, 22 years before. 

~~~

‘Mrs. Parish.’ The tone was hostile, struggling to be polite, as if the speaker would much rather have spat.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs, and turned. Mrs. Bone was peering round her front door, lips pursed. ‘Mrs. Parish. The graffiti. It’s there again.’

‘I didn’t put it there.’

‘No, well, I never said you did, but we all know why it’s there, don’t we? And it’s not nice! None of it’s nice.’

‘It’s not nice for me either.’

‘Whose fault’s that?’ Mrs. Bone slammed her door shut.

Mrs. Parish continued up the stairs. Fifth floor flat. She could have taken the lift, but she’d made that mistake a month ago. She’d found herself trapped with a burly resident who felt obliged to make his feeling clear with his fists. When she escaped, someone called the police. Not an ambulance, just the police.

The latest incident in the park had set off the usual ritual – the tip off to the local papers, the carefully legal tabloid sniping, then the abusive letters, the graffiti, the vigilante rage. Every few years it flared up, usually ending in an assault, a trip to the hospital. She knew by now how to handle it: wait for things to die down, then she’d quietly move on, find a new flat where her neighbours didn’t know her.

The solution was simple. Everyone knew it. She knew it. She should move out of the area. But she wouldn’t. Not till she had her answer.

She was out of breath when she reached her own front door. A red spray can had been used. Lots of it, randomly, like blood splatter. The words ‘Baby Killer’ were scrawled across the door and onto the adjoining wall. Probably a dog turd shoved through the letter box too. There usually was.

Then she noticed the figure.

Hunched, at the end of the corridor, hood up, rising from the ground now like an evil imp.

Her fingers fumbled with her key. She could feel the month-old bruises on her cheek flare up in anticipation, as the figure strode forward.

Then the hood went back. Not a hoodie but a cagoule, not a boy but a girl. A young woman, lank hair, long face white and desperate. No evident hatred, but the girl was strangely rigid.

‘You’re the one, aren’t you?’ the girl demanded. ‘The woman everyone said killed her baby.’ Continue reading →

#ExcerptWeek The Bloodling Series by Aimee Easterling

/ Aimee Easterling / 17 Comments

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One of my favorite books to write was my Bloodling Serial, told from the point of view of a bloodling — a rare shifter born in wolf rather than human form. After growing up four-legged, Wolfie finds it hard to fit into two-legger society…and his antics always surprised me even as I typed them out.

Here’s a brief excerpt from near the beginning of Wolfie’s story:

***

If pee falls in the forest, and no one’s there…should I care?

Chase and I clearly fell on opposing sides of this philosophical conundrum, as evidenced by how quickly my milk brother shifted into human form and donned a scowl upon smelling the intruder’s scent mark.

I, on the other hand, was more interested in teasing out exactly who had come to call rather than in getting offended at the trespass. Lone male werewolf, halfway to adulthood and skulking around the edges of our territory, reported my sensitive lupine nose. And, for a moment, I considered going out of my way to track the outpack shifter down, feeding him a meal if nothing else before letting him continue on his way.

Or maybe I should give the kid a clue that most alphas wouldn’t be as long-suffering as I am when they catch a strange male sniffing after their girls? Because that’s what the outpack shifter had been looking for—unmated females. I could smell the lust and yearning in his urine deposit.

Okay, sure, so every teenage boy has his mind in the gutter. But most at least possessed an iota of self-preservation that would prevent them from marking across an alpha’s own peed-upon cairns. The trespasser might as well have included his phone number and “Call me for a good time” while he was at it—I’d definitely recognize the kid next time I saw him in person.

My father or brother would have been seeing red right about this time, but I instead found the situation increasingly hilarious as I followed the stranger’s minuscule stream of urine from mark to mark. Some over-zealous wolf pup thinking he could challenge my boundaries? I could tell from his scent that the invader was barely old enough to shift, probably a gangling fifteen year old whose human face was covered with acne and who still stumbled over his own lupine feet. The kid would be lucky if he didn’t drizzle urine all over himself while trying to figure out how to lift a leg and direct the stream.

I huffed out a canine laugh at the mental image, but my companion Chase just scowled. “You can’t really let him get away with that,” my milk brother chastened me quietly, laying one hand upon my lupine ears and shaking me none too gently. Chase wasn’t an alpha, which meant that he didn’t actually care about whose dick was the longest, but he still spent an inordinate amount of time looking out for my dignity. Good thing too since someone had to do it…and that person certainly wasn’t going to be me.

On the other hand, while I preferred patrolling our boundaries in lupine form, this conversation was getting too complicated for ear flicks and whines. So I lunged upwards, hands forming out of paws and snout receding in the time it took to turn back legs into…well, just legs.

“Let him get away with what?” I asked my best friend, still grinning at the cheeky bastard who had passed by here only a few hours earlier. “Get away with urinating on a few stones in the woods? I think I’ll survive the threat to my manhood.”

More Info on #DeltonaAuthorsFair Please Share!

/ Marcia Meara / 2 Comments

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Deltona Regional Library hosts Authors Book Fair

Forty authors will take part in a free book fair Saturday, April 2, at the Deltona Regional Library, 2150 Eustace Ave, Deltona.

The authors represent a wide range of genres including children’s literature, Florida and American history, mysteries, spirituality, memoirs, poetry and outdoor guides.

Authors and potential authors can attend the following half-hour classes:

  • 9:30 a.m.: “Keep the creative juices flowing” with Kimberly Cline, a published author, photographer and owner of Funky Trunk Treasures in DeLand
  • 10 a.m.: “Traditional vs. self-publishing” with Melinda Clayton, who has published numerous books and owns Thomas-Jacob Publishing
  • 10:30 a.m.: “Marketing your book on social media” with Gerri Bauer, an author and member of Romance Writers of America
  • 11 a.m.: “Getting organized to write” with Linda Sacha, a life coach and published author
  • 11:30 a.m.: “Getting your book edited, illustrated and ready to be published” with Kathleen Rasche, a professional writer, published author and owner of Plum Leaf Publishing

The public can meet the authors and buy signed books from 1 to 4 p.m.

The book fair is sponsored by the Friends of Deltona Library. For more information call Christy Jefferson at 386-218-4087.

#BeReal – NED HICKSON

/ Marcia Meara / 5 Comments

Whenever my favorite funny man decides to get serious, it’s always worth the read. This is no exception. Check it out!

hastywords's avatarHASTYWORDS

My #BeReal guest today is Ned Hickson.

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As a humor columnist, I get paid to be a truth-stretcher. An embellisher. A chronicler of life blown out of proportion. And I get to do it without living in Washington D.C. It’s a skill my mother will tell you I began honing at a young age — usually as a way of getting out of trouble. Again, it’s a wonder I didn’t go into politics. However, I decided to use my skills for the greater good by becoming a writer instead.

Early in my career, I was in a very unhappy marriage. It lasted 15 years because I got good at not being real. Often, I wrote about my married life in a humorous way by portraying myself as the bungling husband always falling short of his smarter, more capable wife. It kept the peace and also gave me an escape. But…

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#EpicFantasy ‘THE PRINCE’S MAN’ #0.99 #sale

/ Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 20 Comments

And does changing your price on Amazon trigger some visibility?

Thanks to Marcia, for the excellent sharing space here on The Write Stuff, and please, bloggers, do share as well, on Social Media, and if it fits, on your own blogs too.

First up, my  award-winning epic fantasy, THE PRINCE’S MAN is on sale this week for $0.99 (or the equivalent) in ALL outlets across all countries where it is available – if you haven’t yet picked up a copy, now is your chance – one week only.

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Rustam Chalice, dance tutor, gigolo and spy, loves his life just the way it is, so when the kingdom he serves is threatened from within, he leaps into action. Only trouble is, the spy master, Prince Hal, teams him up with an untouchable aristocratic assassin who despises him.

And to make matters worse, she’s the most beautiful woman in the Five Kingdoms.

Plunged into a desperate journey over the mountains, the mismatched pair struggle to survive deadly wildlife, the machinations of a spiteful god – and each other.

They must also keep alive a sickly elf they need as a political pawn. But when the elf reveals that Rustam has magic of his own, he is forced to question his identity, his sanity and worst, his loyalty to his prince.

For in Tyr-en, all magic users are put to death.

Award winning novel, THE PRINCE’S MAN, has been described as ‘James Bond meets Lord of the Rings’ – a sweeping tale of spies and deadly politics, inter-species mistrust and magic phobia, with an underlying thread of romance.

   AMAZON       NOOK    iTunes   KOBO     SCRIBD    PAGE FOUNDRY    GOODREADS

Here are a couple of snippets from recent reviews:

“I enjoyed this book – particularly the gorgeous detail that painted a beautiful picture of the world without slowing down the pace of the story. There are several areas where the description simply blew me away, like the world of Shiva. Ooh, so pretty.”

“This newly created world is firm, there are no gaps or jumps of reasoning. One creature, idea, magic or bit of history flows right into the next. Characters that appear substantial at the beginning of the book do nothing but grow and evolve as their backstory unfolds behind them.”

My pricing question

My question is this: how does a book suddenly gain visibility as a result of a price change?

The reason for my question is this: it has been a very long time since I made any promotional effort on behalf of THE PRINCE’S MAN, for a number of reasons:

  • Time. I’ve been working feverishly on the sequel.
  • My marketing efforts have all been targeted on my urban fantasy books, because they are in KDP select, which is far easier to produce a quick promo than a book that is published in many different places.
  • THE PRINCE’S MAN has, until recently, been a good, consistent seller all on its own.

Toward the tail end of last year it began to slide down the Amazon rankings. As a result, it lost visibility, and come last month, for the first time ever, it didn’t sell a single copy, so the time has come to give it the nurturing it deserves. I duly set about arranging this promo (the first in nearly 2 years for this title), and, as a result of previous issues with price changes and world time differences meaning I lost a couple of booked ad slots (not for this title, but still annoying), I decided to drop the price in plenty of time. Every outlet takes a different amount of time for such changes to filter through, so I initiated the price drop on Tuesday evening, ready for the first ads on Friday.

And guess what?

In no time at all, it began selling again! No ads, no promo, nothing obvious to start the ball rolling, other than the actual price change.

I have absolutely NO idea how it happened, and if anyone has the answer, please share!

 

Facebook ads for books

/ Aimee Easterling / 4 Comments

halfwolfThe hottest topic around the writers’ water cooler in recent months has been using facebook ads. The upshot? You can get email list subscribers for as low as 35 cents a pop by giving away free books. Then it’s a simple matter of massaging your new readers to turn them into buying (or at least reviewing) fans.

If you want to learn more, I recommend checking out Mark Dawson’s free video series for a basic introduction. You’ll have to commit significant time to tweaking, though, and will also want your website to be in top-notch shape before beginning. So I only recommend embarking on the project if you’re willing to take some concerted effort away from writing to make it happen.

Is it worth it? I’d say so. Building up my email list helped me launch my newest book into the 3,000s on Amazon as well as track down 15 five-star reviews during launch week. (Okay, setting the price at 99 cents for the launch period has helped too.) Now I’m trying to continue that momentum with a simple boosted facebook post (a technique that can give you even cheaper results than a fancier facebook ad if you get enough people to like and comment on the post).

Want to help out? I’d love it if you liked, commented on, or shared my new-release facebook post. Remind me when your next book is live and I’ll do the same for you. Thanks in advance!