How to Help an Author

The best way, of course, is to buy their books.

The second best way is to review their books.

Goodreads is one of the easiest places to leave a review.  You don't even have to write anything, you can just rate the book.

On Amazon, you have to leave a short review along with your "star" rating, but it only has to be 20 words  (which is two less than the last sentence).  You can leave something like:

★★★★★ I really loved this book.  I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end.  Can't wait for the next.

Or, perhaps:

★★★★A great book.  Not once while I was reading it did I feel as though I was going to hurl.

The point is, a few moments of your time after you've read something you liked can be a huge boon to the author, particularly one who has chosen to self-publish.  They put lots of time into their work so you would have something to enjoy.  Please take a few moments to give a little something extra back.

Think of it as an incredibly inexpensive holiday gift for an author.  We are so easy to buy for....

Six Sentence Sunday November 25

Hi!  Thanks for stopping by for another 6.  This week's snippet is from Special Rewards, Book Two of the Coursodon Dimension Series.

In the first book -- Special Offers -- Hailey was possessed by the spiritual essence a magically inclined enforcer from Coursodon, a parallel dimension.  Sebastian (or Sebastard, as she frequently calls him), had been trapped in her Kindle and was transferred into Hailey when she first used the eBook reader.  But sharing your body with a supernatural being can have its downside....

~~~~***~~~~

In the end, Sebastian was returned to his own body and, much like a paranormal hostess gift, I was left with a tiny bit of his power.  So far, my only magical talent was the unsettling habit of destroying things when I got really pissed off.  The object of these grueling exercises was to make sure I didn’t accidentally blast someone into oblivion just because they cut in front of me in traffic.  Okay, I only did that once, and I didn’t zap them, just their car.  Magical prowess really brought a new level of nastiness to road rage.  If not for my new Courso friends’ abilities to alter human recollection, a bunch of unsuspecting people would be wondering why the bumper on someone’s F-150 pickup randomly exploded. 

~~~~***~~~~

Thanks again for checking out my post-Black Friday 6.  While you are here, spend some time looking at some of my other posts. Then check out more Six Sentence Sunday snippets.

Black Friday Blog Hop!

I’ve never been a big fan of shopping.  I don’t particularly like crowds and I despise waking up when it’s dark out.  All of which make the whole Black Friday thing my equivalent to having a root canal procedure without any Novocain.  There’s no way in hell I’d ever wait in line in the middle of the night so at the appointed hour I and my line-mates can all behave like barbarians as we trample our fellow man (woman or child) to snag some deal.  How is that fun?  And now, Black Friday begins at some retailers on Thursday.  You are supposed to be pretending to have a wonderful time with relatives you can't stand on Thanksgiving, not skipping out early to check out Target. Why don’t we just have jousting matches outside Best Buy to figure out who will be able to purchase a 36” flat-screen TV made by some unknown company (that can’t be programmed on any Universal remote) for half price?

It’s all a big scam by retailers to get people into the stores anyway. They only have a limited number of the “big deals” at each store so, more than likely - unless you are willing to camp out in line for a few days - you’re not going to bag the bargain anyway.  But you’re there, and you’ve fritted away hours waiting for the doors to open.  You have to justify your time expenditure somehow, and what better way (in the eyes of the retailer, of course), than to buy some other stuff that you could have just as easily waited to purchase when you didn’t have to get up at the butt-crack of whenever. 

I know, I know.  It’s a byproduct of our hunter-and-gatherer roots.  You can’t come back empty handed.   You’ll appear weak.  Your husband will frown and say, “What, you waited for five hours in the cold and you came back without the X-Box Mega 8000 that’s only slightly different than the Mega 7000 that you bought last year?” 

No one wants to have to answer that. 

Instead, you find anything to make your loved ones believe you braved the Black Friday hoards and came back with the modern equivalent of a mastodon to nourish your family through the long winter to come.  Even if that means bringing home a life-sized Justin Beiber Chia Pet.

At least everyone can munch on the sprouts…

~~~~****~~~~

Instead of waiting in line to shop on this, the first official shopping day of the 2012 Holiday shopping season, why not check out my books Special Offers and Special Rewards.

I'm giving away a FREE copy of Special Rewards!

Don't forget to leave your email in your comments so you will be eligible for the prizes!

(The comment section is after the list of bloggers)

And the winner is:  CatFire!
Thanks to all who participated.

Six Sentence Sunday November 18

I planned to sign up early for this week's Six Second Sunday, but I had a complete brain fart and forgot! So I am very excited if you made your way here from there (and my #87).

Today's 6 comes from Book 2 of the Coursodon Dimension Series - Special Rewards.  Hailey seems to be in a spot of trouble...

~~~~~~

“Get up.  Now.”

I couldn’t see his face because my head was now buried between my knees, but I knew from the tone in his voice that he meant business. “This is beyond cruel and inhumane.  Don’t you extra-dimensionals have some form of the Geneva Convention?  Can’t you just water-board me instead?” 

~~~~~~ 

Thanks again for stopping by.  Check out the other Six Sentences and also check out Special Rewards, just released this week!

Book 2 is Released!

Special Rewards - Book 2 of the Coursodon Dimension Series - is now available on Amazon and Smashwords!

What would you do if you discovered there was a parallel dimension?

Hailey Parrish used to be an average, everyday human.  Boring, in fact.   After being possessed by Sebastian Kess, a magically-inclined enforcer from the parallel dimension Coursodon, her life took a decidedly less mundane turn.  Besides coming to grips with the existence of supernatural beings, she risked her life helping Sebastian and her heart falling for his protégé, Alex Sunderland.  Now, Hailey has to deal with the bit of arcane power that Sebastian left behind when he returned to his own body and try to stay out of the crossfire when an unknown assailant seeks revenge against Alex.

Black Friday Blog Hop

While the rest of the US is out handling the crowds, fighting for their holiday gifts, some of us like to stay in, shop online, or just ignore Black Friday all to together. This year, join us in our second annual Black Friday Blog Hop! It's a ONE DAY hop where we're giving away prizes, talking about books we love, and most likely eating left over turkey. :-)

The hop is November 23rd and is ONE DAY only.

And while we do that, we are EACH doing a giveaway. Yep. There will be over 200 giveaways on each blog hosted by that Author or Blogger.

But that's not all....

We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!

Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $75 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!


I'll be giving away a free copy of my newest book - Special Rewards.

All you have to do is hop around and leave your email address in the comments box!

Six Sentence Sunday 11/11/12

Today's Six comes from Special Offers.  Hailey has become inhabited by the spiritual essence of Sebastian Kess, an arrogant womanizer from another dimension who was trapped in her Kindle. She can hear Sebastian in her head, and he isn't the type to keep quiet.  

In this snippet, Hailey wakes up aroused. While she has previously experienced erotic dreams, she's certain Sebastian is responsible for the uncharacteristic self-gratification in which she finds herself engaged. Sebastian swears he  isn't forcing her to feel herself up, and insists she is just responding to his insatiable sexual needs. Needs that haven't been met in the months he's been either stuck in the Kindle or Hailey.

~~~~~~

Why, pray tell, is this problematic, it’s no different than if you had an erotic dream and this way we both get the benefits.”

“Except I don’t have to deal with my fantasies once I wake up. I won’t be able to look you, uh, myself in the eye afterwards.”

“You could have sex with someone else; that would satisfy my cravings.”

“I am not going to sleep with some guy just so you can get your rocks off.”

“While I am not theoretically opposed to sexual liaisons with members of the same sex, I was thinking more along the lines of you sleeping with a woman. That friend of yours, Rachel, she would be perfect. Her breasts are sublime.”

~~~~~~

Thanks for stopping by.  Check out all the other authors' Six Sentences at Six Sentence Sunday.

Free is Good, Right?

Tomorrow and Saturday Special Offers will be free on Amazon.

I know, I sold my author's soul to the corporate devil by making the book exclusive in order to be able to offer it for free.  I've read a lot about the topic and I concluded that this promotion will be a potential boost not only for future sales of the book, but also for the 2nd in the series (which will be out in another week or two).  And I hate to admit it, but Smashwords, B&N, etc didn't get me a lot of sales.  People downloaded about 130 copies from Smashwords when Special Offers was free, but over the last 9 months, there were only about 10 copies paid for.  B&N?  Two sales. Total.  Smashwords is great for sending copies (for free) to reviewers, but most folks apparently buy from Amazon.

Now that I have made myself feel better about succumbing to Amazon's diabolic Select program, I will add that I've done more than just set up the days for the freebie.  I upped the price of Special Offers to make "free" seem like a better deal.  Tomorrow there will be various sites that will post, tweet and/or generally shout out that the book is free.  Like ten or twelve.  I'm anxious to see how many books are downloaded.  Hopefully, lots.  Even if only a small percent actually end up reading Special Offers, a small percent of lots is better than selling a book or two a day.  And I've set up some additional promos for when the book isn't free.  That's called "layered" marketing.  It's supposed to be the thing to do. So I'm doing it.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Wish me luck!

Six Sentence Sunday November 4

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

This is my first Six Sentence Sunday, where authors blog six sentences from one of their masterpieces.  Thanks to Thianna D. for giving me a heads up on this creative opportunity!

Today’s six comes from Special Offers, the first book in the Coursodon Dimension Series.  It’s about Hailey, a 30 year-old, chinchilla-milking book fanatic who bites the bullet and buys a Kindle when her ever-expanding collection of paperbacks threatens to take over her living space.  Unbeknownst to her, it comes pre-loaded with a magically-inclined guy from a parallel dimension and Sebastian’s spiritual essence takes up residence inside of Hailey the first time she turns on the eBook reader.  Believe me, it’s not easy sharing your body with an arrogant, opinionated womanizer, particularly when you still have some unresolved trust issues courtesy of your cheating ex-husband.

~~~~~

After negotiating a payment plan with the restaurant owner - which involved allowing him to indulge his foot fetish with my pinkie toes and some flavored whipped cream - I left the place and got into my car, which was really weird, because my date drove.  There in the parking lot were dine-and-dash and the hostess, groping each other with utter abandon.  I revved up the engine, threw the car into drive and peeled out towards them.  The headlights illuminated their stunned faces as I spun the car sharply, rolled down the window and chucked a lit Molotov cocktail made from the empty wine bottle from dinner at them and sped off humming the theme to “The Lion King.”

I woke up thinking I must be making progress.  Usually in my dreams I ran them over after I set them on fire.

~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed the six sentences.  As long as you’re here, check out the rest of the blog.  Happy Sunday!