Release day – THE PRINCE’S SON #EpicFantasy #sale

Yay! THE PRINCE’S SON is out there in the wide world!

Or on the internet, at least…

I would be very grateful if you lovely people would share my news

Today is release day for THE PRINCE’S SON, book #2 in The Five Kingdoms series, though as you’ve probably gathered if you’ve been here a while, I can’t abide cliff hanger endings, so once again this volume contains a complete story along with continuing threads of the series arc.

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Think ‘Lord of the Rings’ with a ‘Game of Thrones’ edge

She sought a husband, but found a destiny

Nessa Haddo has been raised to pursue what every young noblewoman needs: a suitable husband. Unfortunately for her, as a younger twin, her prospects are limited. Things start to look up when she lays eyes on the handsome foreign envoy sent to escort her sister to an arranged marriage, but her romantic fantasies quickly entangle her in events beyond her darkest nightmares.

Compared to his last mission, ex-spy Rustam Chalice’s new assignment sounds simple: wrangle an unwieldy bridal caravan across a mountain range populated by bandits, trolls, werecats, and worse, try to cajole a traumatized princess out of her self-imposed isolation, and arrive on time for the politically sensitive wedding. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, Lady Risada—the woman who haunts Rustam’s dreams—is struggling to adjust to a normal life. All her carefully honed assassin’s instincts scream warnings of foul play, yet she can find nothing obviously amiss.

And deep in the halls of a mountain clan, an old enemy plucks his victims’ strings with expert malice.

* * * * * *

I’ve shared a few excerpts in the run up to this day, and here is one more short snippet from Chapter 1

Excerpt

Nessa flung the doors open and hurried into the pleasantly appointed sitting room. Enya appeared scant moments later through the connecting door from the servants’ quarters.

Nessa pounced. “Enya, who is the delectable young man with the scar?”

The maid’s pretty round face lit with an impish smile. “That, my lady, is Rustam Chalice.”

“No!” A shiver of excitement ran up Nessa’s spine. “The Rustam Chalice? Really?”

“Yes indeed, my lady.”

Enya bobbed her head in emphasis and several blonde curls slipped from beneath her cap. She reached up, trying to stuff them back in, and Nessa stepped over to help her. The young noblewoman sighed in envy of her maid’s crowning glory. Not that she begrudged the girl her doll-like prettiness or her mop of golden curls, but as ever Nessa wished she had been born with something more striking than her straight brown hair and hazel eyes. While her irises had unusual streaks of light and dark colouring—the only visible difference between her and Julin—people had to inspect them closely to notice.

And surely it would take something special to get a second glance from the infamous Rustam Chalice.

Even Julin appeared mildly interested and asked: “Did he come by that mark in the fire? How sad; he must have been very handsome before.”

So Julin had noticed, but she was wrong—the scar made him all the more attractive. Nessa dragged her attention back to Enya.

“… already had it when he was captured. The way I heard it, it was punishment from the goddess for being vain, although some say it was for daring to use magic.”

Nessa pursed her lips. In her opinion anyone who looked that good had a right to be vain. And as to the other, she found it hard to believe the power responsible for saving their kingdom from the vile pretender might be abhorred by the goddess.

Magic! Ugh.” Julin shuddered. Nessa opened her mouth to point out where they might be now if Rustam Chalice hadn’t used magic when something else struck her.

“But how come he’s here? I thought using magic got him exiled, with his life forfeit if he entered Tyr-en ever again.”

“He’s here under diplomatic protection,” explained Enya, who had obviously quizzed the other servants. “He’s a special envoy for the Kishtanian king.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Nessa as a thrilling notion struck her. “Do you suppose he’ll be travelling back to Kishtan with us?”

* * * * * *

Now for the important bit!

You can buy THE PRINCE’S SON for the next few days at the special introductory price of $2.99/£2.44 at the following stores – just click on your choice of store and it will take you to the appropriate site.

AMAZON          B&N(Nook)       iTunes(Apple)       Kobo           Goodreads

So grab your copy before the price rises, and join Rusty and friends on another high stakes adventure.

For those of you who still like to read a ‘real‘ book, the PAPERBACK (a chunky doorstop of a book) will be out in a couple of weeks time, just in time to be a Christmas present, even if it is to yourself…

And just in case you haven’t yet read volume 1, THE PRINCE’S MAN, and you want to start at the beginning (a very good place to start…) it’s currently on sale at $0.99/£0.99, so what are you waiting for?

Amazon                 B&N                   iTunes            Kobo              Scribd

****PLEASE SHARE****

Thank you!

Lessons I Learned from My Cat #writing #cats

Busy? Running this way and that? Stressing over the latest WIP deadline? Today, over at Story Empire, I’m sharing a post about lessons for slowing down that I learned from my cat. Yes, cat, LOL. I thought a few of you might be interested in checking it out.

Mae Clair's avatarStory Empire

Hi, friends. Mae here with a post about patience, that elusive quality which frequently slips through our fingers. If you’re scratching your head, wondering who has time to be patient when a writer’s life is so demanding, slow down and have a seat.

Yes, we’re often flying in several different directions. Writing, editing, critiquing, engaging in promo, Tweeting, Facebooking…you get the picture. Multi-tasking isn’t a function, it’s a way of life.

With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Onyx, my beautiful black domestic shorthair. Sadly, I had to say goodbye to him early in 2012 when he passed away from cancer, but we had thirteen wonderful years together. During that time he taught me several things, foremost among them patience.  Cats have an endless supply of that all-elusive, mystical quality.

A cat can outwait time.

black cat lying in sunlight on carpeted floor with back to camera Onyx, a master at relaxing. And looking good while doing it!

Onyx…

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Self-publishing and the snobbery issue

Excellent post, well stated, and (in my opinion), very true. I’ve read some pretty poorly edited traditionally published books lately, and some absolutely perfect self-published ones. And it’s time for “some” writers to stop trying to paint self-published writers as authors who couldn’t make the grade.

Call to Arms: Year-long survey reveals which book advertiser offers best value for money

A very interesting survey, but do read the entire article to understand fully. Please feel free to share any experiences you’ve had with these types of advertisers, too.

Nicholas C. Rossis's avatarNicholas C. Rossis

Last year, I shared with you the result of my Call to Arms, on my very popular post, Book Marketing Results 2015. I now have collected enough data to follow up with this year’s results. Like last time, I knew most of the media mentioned, although there a few surprises as well. Indeed; I hadn’t heard of 3 of the top 10 advertisers!

Methodology

Book Marketing Results | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksFor anyone wishing to take a look at the raw data, you can download this Excel spreadsheet. I have only processed data from discounted books, as that formed the vast majority of responses.

To compare the various ad media, I came up with a number that represents the ratio between number of sales and cost of advertising. In other words, if you spent $1 and had one sale, then this number would be one. If you spent $1 and had two sales, the number would…

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“Tea With the Author” at DeBary Hall Historic Site

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DeBary Hall Historic Site

If you live in the central Florida area, you are cordially invited to attend a catered luncheon and tea at historic DeBary Hall, on November 12, 2016. I’m  excited to say I’ll be the featured guest that day, and I can’t wait! Here are all the details .

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Tea With the Author

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Marcia Meara

Saturday, November 12, 2016 11:30 AM
***Ticket Includes***
Catered Luncheon with Custom Blended Teas
A Reading from My Latest Book
A Question & Answer Session & Book Signing
And an Autographed copy of Harbinger: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 3

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Limited Space Available.
Reserve Your Seat Today!

For Tickets,  Call DeBary Hall at 386-668-3840
~~~

Think about it, folks! A yummy catered lunch of tea sandwiches and delicious desserts, served by staff members in period costume. Piping hot cups of custom blended teas, named for characters from my novels, such as Sarah’s Favorite Earl Grey, Willow’s Raspberry Cooler, Gunnar’s Assam Blend, and Hunter’s Mango Green.  A free, signed copy of Harbinger. And, tada . . . me! Such a deal! 😀

I’ll be doing a reading and there will be plenty of time after lunch for a Question & Answer session and a signing. And I promise there will be lots of laughter and fun. It’s my number one rule at these things.

 A $20 ticket gets you all of the above, and since book alone sells for $10, that’s really a super deal! Call today to reserve a seat.  You KNOW you want to, and I can’t wait to see your smiling faces!

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Update on Setting Things Up & Starting Over

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Just Relaxing, Here!
(I Wish!)

Well, I said it would take me a week or longer to get everything set up, and I was half right. A week ain’t gonna do it. Longer might. 🙂 At least I’ve got my blogs accessible, though I haven’t had much time for posting. And my email is coming in properly (knock wood!), though I’m still trying to learn how to organize gmail the way I want. But this is a vast improvement over just a couple of days ago.

Replacing all the programs I lost is taking a lot of time. Some things I can do without, but others, I really need, and must repurchase, in some cases, or locate online and reinstall. Changing my email address on all the blogs I follow, and other utility sites (like Twitter, Hootsuite, Facebook, etc) is taking for-EVER.

Bottom line is, I’m following you guys as best I can, but if I haven’t been responding to the latest posts on your blogs, it’s because I end every day with a ToDo list that’s longer than it was when the day began. And oh, yeah. I’m trying to write a book here, too. 😀

 I apologize for not being able to keep up right now, but as soon as I possibly can, I’ll be back to sharing your posts with the Immediate World. 🙂 Surely a few more days will do it.

THANKS!! Now back to your previously scheduled program. 😀

Assessing my October Promotions

Authors, if you’ve done any kind of promo for your books (giveaways, reduced price, free) you’ll find this post from C. S. Boyack over at Story Empire interesting. Craig takes a look at a number of different promos he’s run and the results he netted from each!

coldhandboyack's avatarStory Empire

I started gearing up for October promotion way back this Spring. It involved an email exchange with Mae Clair that led to forming the Story Empire collective. That includes the formation of this blog, and our mutual promotions.

I also wanted to do a bunch of solo promotion, and that’s what this assessment is going to be about. Regular followers of my blog know I do assessments from time to time, and since they can be helpful to my fellow authors, I thought this might be a good place to post one. I may touch upon the Story Empire promotions, but it’s too soon for an assessment of our group efforts.

Assessments are like any other numbers game. You can make the numbers tell you anything you want. If you look at money spent vs. money earned, my promotions were all losers. That doesn’t give you the whole picture though…

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