Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Sheri Velarde and Gods Behaving Badly


Cover Reveal for Between Love and War: Book 3 of Gods Behaving Badly

When I first thought about becoming and “author” and putting my work out there for others to read, I never thought that I would become published. Then I never thought that I would have a series! How cool is that? I have a book series! It still boggles my mind even though Book 3 of my Gods Behaving Badly series, Between Love and War, is about to come out next month. Truthfully I stumbled into a series. The first book, Looted, was meant to be a short that just kept growing and ended in a way that demanded another story. I guess I should also mention that Looted was rejected before it found its home at Secret Cravings Publishing. Just goes to show that you should never give up. So Stealing Hearts came to be and I introduced a few more gods of old, gods who were just demanding to have their adventures told. Sometimes characters just take on a mind of their own and will not leave you any peace until you listen to them and write about them. The one that screamed at me the loudest was Ares, the god of war just would not be put off. So Book 3 is the story of the true love between Ares and Mania, because of course the goddess of madness is the one true love of Ares. Only makes sense right? Truly, character and books do take on a life of their own and often I am just along for the ride!

Between Love and War was just accepted last week and is being fast tracked for a June release! I will have a release date soon, but right now I am so happy to be able to share the beautiful cover with you all! First round edits are done and we are full steam ahead! I am so excited!
 
 

Blurb:

After the Fall, Ares spent a thousand years searching for his lost love Mania. Thinking he had lost her forever, he settled into the life of a mercenary here on earth. Then the fates, and his sister the goddess of love, showed him Mania was alive and well. He travels to London hoping to regain what he had thought lost forever.

Mania had spent a millennia as a wraith of madness before slowly starting to rebuild herself into a new and independent woman. Art had been her outlet and her savior. Then one night her world is turned upside down when her old love walks back into her life. Can she love him again and still remain the woman that she had become?

Unbeknownst to both of them a mysterious organization is lurking in the background and threatening to unravel the lives of all the gods on earth.

  Links:

Secret Cravings Publishing: http://bit.ly/1BnIMx1

Amazon page for Sheri Velarde: http://amzn.to/1dvAoqb




 

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Midwife's Moon re-release and The War of the Weres

*Waves* We are forgoing this weeks Your book. Your Business. posts to bring you news of the exciting sort! My book!!! With beautiful new edits, some words cut, over 1k new words added, a glossary of peeps --including a sneak peek at characters not out yet!--and locations and specialty words as well! So much new stuff. In the first book, I also re-edited and added significant number of words as I also cut some. I rewrote a scene and added a short scene. So you want to get books one and two new versions! And book three is hopefully not too far behind! In the meantime, there will be shorts released!

Here's the EXQUISITE COVERS


 
 
I TOTALLY AM IN LOVE WITH THEM. My cover artist, Victoria Miller, pushed out some more beautiful work! *gives standing ovation*

Right now, I have over 15 full length novels and about 6 chronicles (these are main characters/story bits already moving, some partly written...I have two shorts written, one half written, and others clamoring, half a full length and notes on another full length...from writing in my *spare* time.

I'm so excited to have these back out. Some health issues, partly caused by extreme stress both in my personal life and my professional life, put these on hold. But I'm having new ideas all the time. These books will traverse the world over! Next, in The Panther's Hunter, I stay in my home state of Washington, but move off the reservation to a transplanted werepanther to Mt. Rainier.  Transplanted from New Orleans, where I am planning to go for book four if Sherona and Tom's story will wait. They were planned for book 6, but Sherona is a character to be reckoned with and Tom is her perfect counter point and can quite hold his own against her shenanigans. I just hope I can get the others written fast enough for them!

Barnes and Noble can be found here, All Romance ebooks (ARe) can be found here, and Amazon here. It is also on Kobo, Google Play, and iTunes or books, or whatever it is LOL I always get them mixed up.  Enjoy this continuing saga where each story has the world woven through with continuing stories, but stands on it's own as a novel. You will find yourself both satisfied with the main story and wanting more for the world! :D

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Your Book. Your Business. #4


Your Book. Your Business. #4

Due to recent events, I’ve changed this week’s post to be about pirating.

An aspect of the writing business which I loath is pirating. The sites never really come down. You feel torn up, violated, abused, and half the time, no one is listening anyway. “It’s a victimless crime. Why do you care. Who am I hurting? It’s not like the writers work or anything. The writer should just be glad I want to read their awful work. Books should be free.”

 

I have heard all of this and more, but we can’t give up the fight. It’s not just for writers either. It’s all art. Writing, painting, music, and fashion designs… All of it is sparked on creativity. Oh man, I remember when Metallica took on napster. Everyone was soo upset. “You’re just greedy. Music should be free. Everyone should have the right…” yada yada.

Well, guess what? If Metallica hadn’t done it, then the little guy would have been put out of business long time ago. Concerts don’t just pay the talent. They pay the stage hands, the venue, etc. The money concerts bring in supports the hotels, restaurants, etc. There is a ton of businesses that receive extra money because of these events. It’s not just the musicians that are affected by this. The fact that Metallica took on this role saved hundreds if not thousands of jobs all over the world. You already have access to free music…it’s called the radio!

Art, there are galleries, online galleries, etc. where it is Free to go look. But don’t copy it, don’t print it out for your wall, don’t use it yourself. Also, don’t claim you did it. In music and art, you can “copy” to practice, but don’t put out that it’s yours. In Music, it’s called a cover, and in art, it’s called a study. There are more rules and it is your job to find out those rules if you want to use them. I have a study of Chagall. I went to the extreme of signing it, “Study of Chagall” then my name and year so there is no question of my intent.

The materials needed for both art and music is astronomical. Don’t believe me? Go price equipment. Not cheap as dirt, won’t be worth the space equipment, but that needed for good art and good music. Even middle of the line isn’t cheap. Hell, dirt cheap isn’t cheap. Then there’s the electricity, the practice venue, the studios, the other stuff people don’t think about, ie printing costs, mediums, replacing brushes, website costs, seller fees, etc.

Same goes for books. There’s this thing called a library, and since you don’t have to pay to get a card… yes, it’s free. And, in this day and age, the pirating of books is happening digitally. One, if you can afford an ereader, then shell out the 5-15 bucks for a book, or don’t read it, or go to the library. Two, there are hundreds of contests going on every day on FB, Twitter, Goodreads, and even publishing sites sometimes have them where they are giving out free books. If circumstances have changed, or the ereader was a gift, then spend a little of your time going after the legitimately free stuff. Or “buy” the free books offered on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I have been poor. Homeless, not enough food, poor. I’m here to tell you there is NO excuse.

Still think this is a victimless crime? Think again. I’ve gone on many blogs trying to show how even the loss of ten dollars can affect a family. I have no thyroid, and for a while, my monthly meds were ten bucks. They’ve gone up, but yeah. I have been so poor that I had to choose between spending ten bucks on meds and buying my kids milk and cereal that would have to work for breakfast and dinner for the weekends. So, don’t give me the I’m poor excuse. It isn’t one. I didn’t go stealing your stuff, burning down your house, making you ill, or any other issue because I was poor, so don’t go stealing my books and keeping me from being able to eat under the excuse that you’re poor. By the way, it’s one of the worst excuses in the world for bad behavior. Anyway, here’s my FB post yesterday. It is highly emotional. Probably should have censored it a bit, but I’d also had my wallet and some car parts stolen over the weekend, so my tact meter was broken about the issue of thievery.

 

 

As many of you know, pirating of art, from books to paintings, to anything else, pisses me off. Well, today was supposed to be a rerelease of book that has been out of print for around 9 months. The pirate sites have them up still, so Amazon is refusing to publish. I was supposed to re-release it today. Instead, I'm wasting time fighting pirates. If I had an actual sword, might be worth the LITERAL DOLLARS AND CENTS I'M LOSING RIGHT NOW. PLEASE IF YOU'VE NEVER BELIEVED ME BEFORE, PIRATES LITERALLY COST THE AUTHOR MONEY. I DON'T CARE WHAT SOME AUTHORS SAY. IF YOU WANT A FREE BOOK, GO TO THE LIBRARY OR SIGN UP FOR THE HUNDREDS OF FREE BOOKS GIVEN AWAY EVERY DAY. OR JUST 'BUY' THE FREE ONES ON AMAZON.


My pre-release and release being put off can also affect other authors as it puts us closer together. At a time where I'm looking to grow fast and furious in all avenues of my life, the loss of money through ANOTHER FUCKING THIEF after the loss of my wallet, etc. and that headache, it makes me want to set them all up in a firing squad. BUT THEY WOULDN'T DO IT IF PEOPLE WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD THEM. SERIOUSLY. I know people who pay 6-8 bucks for a damn cup of coffee, but won't pay five for a book they can reread. Just...


If you are HONEST TO GOD POOR, and in case you're wondering, if you get your hair and nails done, that's not poor, that's whining, for example, then talk to a favorite author. I need so much marketing help etc., and would probably trade work for a copy of my books! A lot of authors are willing. ON top of the contests and giveaways and libraries carrying them, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR DOWNLOADING PIRATED BOOKS OTHER THAN YOU WANT TO BE A THIEF AND/OR SUPPORT A THIEF. IT IS NOT A VICTIMLESS CRIME. My family IS DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THIS.

 
You want it in the vernacular? I will get paid for these sales right before school starts. So this directly plays into whether or not I will be able to buy my kids clothes, pay the fines, the tech stuff, sports stuffs, and all the other crap of having a special ed kid going to first, another going into middle school for first time and needing freaking uniforms, and one going into high school for the first time and needing god knows what else besides the normal pens and clothes. IT MATTERS.

 

AND NO, THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE RANT. THIS ALSO WILL PUT OF THE PRINT RELEASE OF BOTH THE MIDWIFE'S MOON AND THE ULFRIC'S MATE AS IT IS A MATTER OF TIMING. SCREW ALL PIRATES AND THEIR SUPPORTERS. YOU CHEAT MY FAMILY, MY CHILDREN AND I HAVE NO LOVE FOR YOU.

 

 

As you can see, this directly affects my bottom line in a way that’s very personal. I did what you must all be prepared to do. I sent out the DMCA notices, my publisher is assuring Amazon that she has the rights to my book, and that I am the author, yada yada. But it’s costing time and money that would be better spent being creative or resting for the next bout of creativity, or playing with my kids. That's not to say it's okay to do it to someone who's rich. The authors and publishers are still paying others (editors, managers, etc all get paid from this work) from the money made on each sell. And don't forget, the big bad boogie man Amazon takes about a 70% cut on anything under 2.99US. So, that makes it even harder for everyone to get paid. But Amazon, Barnes and Noble, they all deserve their cut for providing space (yes, even online space) for readers to buy the work, and they, of course, take it. The money you pay doesn't go straight into the authors' pockets. Hell, it doesn't even go straight into the publishers' pockets. It first goes into the third parties pockets, to then be distributed. (Why I will never be on Amazon's side when they try their BS with big pubs and make it look as if they are doing it for poor little you. They're not. They want control over it and hope to bring people to their own publishing company. Don't be fooled. You getting anything cheaper is a by product, not the end game, and would change if places like Books a Million, Barns and Noble, ARe ever went out of business. Though they are domiciled in my home state, they are not the underdog. But that is a post for another day LOL)
 
 

 

But, it is a cost of doing business nowadays. You have to fight them. If we authors all flooded the FBI with these sites and complaints, they’d be shut down faster. You have to not ignore it. There are programs out there that will do it for you (which I suggest if you can at all afford it. I hate the business end of writing. I want to create. So I get that lol). However you choose to deal with it, whether hiring someone, buying a program, or doing it individually, you must deal with it. I’ve sent out multiple forms. I hate it with a passion. But it must be done.

 

Your creativity is your money maker. You cannot let anyone destroy it. Not by piracy, not by drama, not by criticism. You must hone it, learn to make it stronger, and protect it. You can do this.

 

After all, it’s your book, your business.

 

For the readers out there. Please, if you are not paying for a book on a site when Amazon is charging, it’s likely pirated. It’s not a lucky break or a deal. They are stealing. Don’t support them, don’t use them, etc.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

KD Rose ~ Brevity of Twit

Hello World!  No really. This isn’t the rote WordPress hello, it’s me, author KD Rose saying “Hi.”  I’ve been absent awhile due to illness and now I’m back. I’m here, maybe not running with the bulls but at least hobbling with the um, well, chronically pretty darn god-awful ill.  But enough about that. I’m all about keeping it positive (except when I’m not). But see- things are looking up! Literally. This is a view from my yard so life can’t be all bad.

Add to that a wonderful husband, family, and even a wonderful publisher and I have a reason to dig out the old keyboard again. Ok, it was actually replace the new wireless keyboard which didn’t work worth squat with the old wired up keyboard that still works just fine, but that’s technical life for a plebian.
 

I’m posting on this date to mention that despite everything I have a new book coming out on May 21st, 2015- exactly one short week from now. Titled The Brevity of Twit, this humorous book is everything I used to be. Using the Twitter forum as a scroll, The Brevity of Twit yields humor, insight, and poetic vigor in a light read that will both lift your spirits and make you ponder. So take a gander. My publisher decided to publish it despite the absence of the entire being of the author (me). What more can an author ask for? The book will be on Amazon and other neat sites. I’ll post the links once the book is live.

In the meantime I’m going to un-pause and reinvigorate. It’s been awhile since I’ve sipped the creative nectar and I’m sure it will be as sweet, tangy, and ironic as I remember.

Blurb:

Humor in 140 characters or less.

A witty walk through the minefield of tweeting, twitter, and the many uses we have socially for it. From serious poetry to a scandalous take on improper grammar, this fast paced take on the brevity of chatting in 140 characters or less will have you falling in love with tweeting all over again.

 
 

Excerpt:

Trending

Trending is when thousands of people across a state, country, countries, or continents, (depending on your settings) all decide to tweet about the same topic. This usually involves hashtags, a topic listed under "Trending," and many, many people looking for their moment in the spotlight. Generally, trends are about something happening on social media, the news, movies, music, or taking place in the world at the moment. New releases, and celebrities often dominate. Celebrity deaths and death hoaxes also make their appearance. For example, as I write, #royalbaby is trending because that news was just announced and 3— not 1, not 2, but 3 trending subjects are about 1Direction. There is also a #HappyBDayCamCam trending about someone named Cameron Dallas who has 3.4 Million Twitter followers, and I don't know who he is because, well, I'm old.

Not that these aren't THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS EVER, but occasionally, just occasionally something will trend that is interesting to writers, or nerds, or writer-nerds like me. Sometimes these are more local trending subjects, but occasionally even God arises and says- "I am TIRED of Chris Brown, and Margaret Atwood is not tweeting today— Let the Higgs-Boson Particle be found!" Then suddenly science nerds and writer nerds and wordplay nerds form a bond. Higgs-Boson trends, writers have a field day, scientists nash their teeth at all the incorrect explanations going around, thunder claps, rivers overflow, and for a brief moment, even science makes twitter news.

Higgs-Boson Tweets:

•Higgs Boson- "The Force is strong with that one."#laymangeekbutIcanthelpit

•Ok Kids: Higgs, Top Quark, Ultra High Energy Ray, TOE. In that order. I'll be waiting for a report at dinner. Higgs Boson

•Wow- articles are now out saying US sees stronger hints of Higgs. Way to grab the spotlight for a dead collider. CERN is EU. Higgs Boson

•True- the US found hints of Higgs Boson too, but wasnt up to more so it was kind of expected from CERN. Atom Smasher suffers collider envy.

•They might have found Higgs Boson. They might have not. Schrodinger is happy.

•Oh my- Higgs is now trending without Boson. Seriously!

•People who can make Higgs Boson jokes return my faith in humanity.

•Higgs Boson? How quaint. Where's the (S)top Quark? What- did I just suck all the air out of CERN? Oh no wait that's another experiment.

•Higgs Boson Why Science Works: There is no religion around supersymmetry.

 

Author Bio:

K.D. Rose is an author and poet. With fellow authors around the globe, KD was also a founding member of the e-magazine, INNOVATE. K.D.'s book, "Inside Sorrow" won the Readers Favorite 2013 international Silver Medal for Poetry.

K.D. has an eclectic mind and loves language, physics, philosophy, photography, design, art of all kinds, writing of all kinds, symbolism, semiotics, spirituality, and Dr. Who.

K.D. Rose values the question more than the answer and loves creativity and innovation.

KD Rose is an avid supporter of music, the arts, cutting edge science, technology, and creativity in all forms that encourage us to expand and explore past the artificial limits we often set for ourselves in order to see the everyday connections that exist among all things.

She also currently has "Heavy Bags of Soul", "Inside Sorrow", and "I AM" - on sale at Amazon and other retailers.

Join K D Rose on the following social media sites:

Twitter: @kdrose1


 

Friday, May 15, 2015

Jessica Bayliss cover reveal and more


This went out on my other blogs yesterday, but as my laptop and FB decided to screw with me, this gets to go up today for her as well :D Just spreads all the love around.
Please welcome Jessica Bayliss with her debut short with Three Worlds Press. The first in the Sea Mist series.
 
 
1)      Share with our readers a little about your book. (Remember to make it so they want to read more LOL)

“Breathless” is a romantic ghost about a young woman, Leah, who is traveling alone in the British Virgin Islands. The action begins during a scuba dive at a sunken wreck, supposedly haunted, when Leah discovers her oxygen tank is empty. This story is inspired a little bit from my own experience. I actually ran out of air during a dive about two years ago. Obviously, I survived. But, I’ll tell you, it was pretty darned freaky. In Leah’s case, she turns to one of the dive instructors, Dale, an Operation Enduring Freedom veteran, to get her back to the surface safely. The shared exhilaration of their experience forges a connection between these two. I bet you can see where this is going …

As the tour group moves from the boat to the beach for an overnight campout, Dale and Leah are drawn to each other. They discover they’re each searching for ghosts, but for very different reasons. Throw in a moonlight hike, a salt pond, a bonfire …

I love a little supernatural with my romance, so I set out to give readers a contemporary, real-world story, with paranormal flair.

It’s up to you to decide if Leah’s and Dale’s ghosts are real.

 

2)      Tell us about yourself and what brought you to writing?

I have a career that is very different from writing, but writing is something I’ve done since I was a kid, although not seriously until 2010. I tried to write my first book in high school, and even got a bunch of chapters done. I have it somewhere in my house. I should dig it out and see how awful it was. I started another one right around the time I began grad school, which took over my life, and I totally forgot about the book. Years later, I got the writing bug back. I found the book I started in grad school, threw out almost all of it, and then finished it a year later. I’ll confess: it was not good, but it was one of the best moments of my life. I wrote my second book the next year while rewriting the first—a task that took three years, and I’m sure an editor would still give me plenty to do on it. Now, I’ve written four novels and a whole slew of short stories, one of which is “Breathless.” In the last five years, I’ve grown so much as a writer, largely from meeting other writers and from practice. I must state: the network I’ve built—these people are incredible. I could never do this without them. We’re there for each other every single day.

 3. Do you believe in Bigfoot?

Absolutely not. But we’re Bigfoot fans in our house. My husband, Eric, bought us our very own garden Yeti, complete with a sign, warning everyone to beware. Eric’s Bigfoot impersonation is superb, by the way. Despite my skepticism, one of my future projects will contain a Yeti. My second book is called “Therapist of the Damned,” and it’s about a psychologist who discovers her patients are vampires and all manner of supernatural creatures. I love this concept, although I’m well aware that vampires are a tough sell these days; if I’m never able to get it published, I’ll probably continue to develop the stories, because they’re pure fun. So, one night, over dinner, Eric and I were brainstorming characters for my book. He suggests I add a Yeti to my series, and I’m like, no way. Then, I realize the brilliance of his idea. A yeti in treatment for social phobia! Too perfect. My main character will definitely need a larger couch.
 
Now, ready for the cover and blurb? Here you go!

Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. These shorts are so much fun. I can't wait for everyone else to read them.

Thank you Jessica for being on my blog today!

 

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Your Book. Your Business 3


Your book. Your Business.

 

We’ve been doing this series of business things, mostly on contract details that are often overlooked. Now, I’d like to talk to you about the author community. (Since my assistant reminded me to blog! Flu is running through my family in a very strange manner! I'm exhausted, so bear with me, and hopefully, you'll understand what I'm saying.)

 

Your author friends can be some of the best friends you’ll ever find. However, sometimes, there is a snake in the grass. He/she may be seen as someone grand, but, if you do research, you may find a lot of things wrong with what they’ve told you. Others, who don’t want to see or who drink the koolaid won’t see it until it’s too late. Sometimes, even then, they can’t see it.

 

So what do you do when you have two opposing sides? Mostly, I recommend staying out of it. The community is a large one. However, there are times, when you must pick a side for your own conscience. Even then, I’d go with class. Be forthright in your opinions. Share sites that you found your information on, copies of legalities, screen shots, etc. as needed, but try to keep your opinion professional, regardless of how angry you are at the time.

 

How many times did we see backlash for authors rioting with readers? Or, let’s take it to the TV Realm for a bit. Who has seen Chef Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (trademarks, etc. I’m not claiming any affiliation for or to them. This is used in fair use policy as an icon to deliver a point.)? The one with the ABC Baking Company? The people who went absolutely beserk on national social media? Even international? Just for the record, I want to be famous, but not in that way!

If you push people far enough, claim contracts say this when legally, they don’t say any such thing, you’re going to start looking like that. And while you may have your Sammy in your corner, well… think of how he comes off? Brute, bullish, and not very nice. He’s been eating’ Amy’s sauce too long…ie, drinking her Koolaid ;)

I have said things I regret. We all do. But, when it’s in the community, be extra careful. One, you don’t know who’s going to say what where, or, if you give an opinion in confidence, who that person may tell, or who will choose a person in another country over a longstanding friendship with you to be that spy or to give away your confidence. You don’t know who will turn down a friendship as close as sisters for a business or a person not worthy of the trust or loss of friends. You don’t know when it will come back to bite you in the a$$. You just don’t know.

 

While you don’t have to be a sheep and bleat all the latest fads, neither can you burn your bridges with bad manners and back stabbing because you never know when you will need that bridge to cross to a new level, and instead, are stuck. If you’re lucky, the material will still be there to build the bridge. But, if you wait too long, the materials will rot away into the landscape, or be swept away in an ocean of moving on with people who aren’t stuck on stupid or back stabbing you when you’re not looking.

 

In your social media contacts, marketing, ads, etc., be someone you can be proud of. Be someone whom the readers are going to flock to. Don’t become angry and sullen and hateful because you’re upset about something. Remember, the authors/readers/publishers will hear about it at some point, and you need to be able to honestly say you weren’t the one who started stuff, but you’ll finish it.

 

Er, I mean, don’t take stuff lying down, but don’t make a public debacle that will make the readers turn from you. Even if you’re right. Find the middle ground of sticking up for yourself, but not letting drama queens make you look bad for their bad behaviour and having their cronies come in and attack you too. Just, stand the high ground. Like Obe Wan in Star Wars. You’ll win on the high ground. You may lose friends you cared about more than yourself, but at least you didn’t compromise your moral standards and droop to their level of defending what they have no clue of which they speak, or of a free for all name calling douchebaggery.

Keep it classy. Keep it real. After all, it’s your book, your business.