The continuing saga of my promotional trail continues! I have to say, trying to run a free promotion on Barnes & Noble and Amazon through setting a book to free on Smashwords was a total bust. Angel of Mercy
has been available for free there for over a month, and the other two sites have not picked up the promo at all. The websites says it can take a while for it to catch up and reflect the lower price, and chatter on the net says it takes about three weeks, but it’s been well over that, and no change. So I’m figuring the only way to do the free giveaways is through KDP select and only for 5 days in a 90 day period. Still don’t have a clue how to do a free giveaway on Barnes & Noble now. The last couple of free giveaways were hella smaller than the first one, (which was tough to top at over 22,000 books given away), so I’m not convinced that’s the way to go anymore. The exclusivity that Amazon demands for 90 days makes it a tough decision.
That brings us to my upcoming paid promotion through Kindle Nation Daily. Tomorrow an email blast goes out for Pretty Witches All in a Row
that will hopefully generate a few sales. In anticipation of that, I’ve lowered the price temporarily to $.99 to maximize the promotion, we’ll see what happens. When I did the promotion for both Angel of Mercy and The Touch I got between 30 to 40 sales the day the email blast went out, so I’m hoping Pretty Witches does well, considering it’s my best seller.
Nine Steps to Sara is coming along well, though I always lose my perspective in the middle of it. It’s only when I get to the first read through that I have any sense of whether or not it makes sense and flows well. That said, I’m on vacation, and it was hard to stay on target yesterday! I only got about 1k of writing done instead of the 2k per day minimum, but I’m okay with that. We only take a few days off like this twice a year, so it’ll be okay if the book gets finished a few days behind schedule.
In the meantime, I’m having a wonderful time on vacation, and taking lots of pics, so I’ll be posting a blog on that later on. Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there, I hope you have a fantastic weekend!
May rang in with a bang with an unexpected boost to sales (for no reason that I can figure), The Avengers opens this Friday, it’s time for a new monthly resolution, and I’ve started my new book Nine Steps to Sara! Whew, that’s a lot for one update!
First of all, can I just say again – The Avengers opens this Friday!!!
Okay, I’m better now.
For the month of May, I’m proud to report I still haven’t cheated on any of the previous month’s resolutions. If you remember, I’ve given up fried food, fast food, baked desserts and started exercising 5 days per week. So what to give up next? Well, sadly, I’m not seeing a whole lot of movement on the scale yet, and I know why. There are still waaay too many delicious things out there for me to eat too much of! So, for May, my resolution is to start tracking what I eat again in an online food diary. I’ve done it before with great results, but I was reluctant to get back to it because it’s so tedious! But, I know it’s good for me, so as of yesterday, I’m tracking every single thing that goes into my mouth, including the sugarless gum (which is still 4 calories per stick, 
).
Nine Steps to Sara is coming along well, beginnings are always hard for me on the first pass, but hopefully I can find the right creepy/entertaining vibe I’m going for.
Let me think… what else is going on… Moonsong
is doing very well so far, and I’ve been very happy with the reviews I’ve received. Now if I can just get it formatted for paperback so I can add it to my shelf…
That’s about it for me, guys. Oh, but have I mentioned, The Avengers is opening this Friday?
My new werewolf paranormal romance Moonsong is now available for sale on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com! It’s out as an e-book for $3.99 but you don’t have to have a Kindle or Nook to read it, they have free downloadable apps so you can read it on your PC, or even your phone. It’ll be available in print as well in a couple of weeks through Amazon.
I’m already deep in plotting mode for my next book Nine Steps to Sara which is a spooky thriller set in the remote English countryside.
Moonsong has a new cover and CL Parks is the winner of the free book!
Well, it pretty much came out as a tie, so in the end I went with the greener one. I agree, the blue is much prettier, but the green seems to catch the eye better.
Thanks again to everyone who voted, I appreciate it more than I can say.
P.S. Moonsong should be available any day now in ebook format, the print version to follow soon.
It’s that time again to give me your thoughts and feedback on the cover art for my new book, Moonsong. Anyone who comments on the covers on the website will be automatically entered for a chance to win a copy of one of my books (your choice of books).
I know the difference is subtle, and please remember this will be mostly seen against a white background on Amazon.com, since that is where I sell the most. I’d also love to hear constructive criticism and ideas for how to improve them if you have any suggestions. Please keep in mind that they have to be not only eye-catching, but easy to identify when much smaller in ads and for sale on websites.
Here is a little blurb of what the book is about:
After werewolves attack her family, Amelia Singer escapes to Cutter’s Folly in search of her long lost Grandmother. There she finds the strangest revelation yet; not only is she descended from a long line of shapeshifters; Amelia’s firstborn is destined to lead the pack to dominion over all others. Now power hungry shifters everywhere will stop at nothing to share in that prophecy. Choosing a mate is the only way to end the violence, but how can she be expected to choose a man she’s known for less than a week? At the heart of this struggle, Amelia is torn between Chase, who makes her pulse race with a single sultry glance, and Cutter, a reclusive but tempting loner with secrets of his own. Can fiercely independent Amelia find happiness with the pack, or will she rebel under the pressure and take her chances on her own?
The third book in The Fallen series is available through Amazon.com
in print! To celebrate, here is another little excerpt that takes place after Mercy gets back to Midian to rescue Adam.
Without thinking, I let go of Nelo’s hand, rushing forward to greet him without a single thought as to whether or not there might be anyone else in the room watching. “Adam!” I gasped, my heart clenching almost painfully in relief as I ran to his side to throw my arms around him. Only Adam didn’t seem happy to see me at all, catching hold of my arms before I could wrap them around his shoulders.
“Nice try, I’m not falling for that again,” he growled, shoving me aside where I landed on my butt with a soft whump. Oh sweet Jesus, had Raum sent him an imposter me? For what possible purpose?
“Adam it’s me!” I insisted, shifting back up to my knees. “It’s Mercy.”
“Uh huh, sure,” he turned back to his book, studiously ignoring me.
“No, seriously…” I frowned. “Who else would I be? Look, I brought Nelo with me,” I looked around but Nelo was gone. “Nelo?” Adam didn’t even bother to look up, and I craned my head to look back towards the doorway. “Nelo, this is really not a cool time to go walkies…”
“I’m not into the floor show, so you can take your act and buzz off, okay?” he smirked. “Why don’t you run off and tell Raum I don’t need his attempts to keep me happy, I’ll keep honoring my part of the bargain.”
“Oh for the love of…” snatching the book out of his hands, I tossed it aside. “Hey, the least you can do is listen to me after everything I did to get here. I don’t know what Raum’s done to you and frankly I don’t want to know about you and any body doubles he’s sent your way, but it really is me and I can prove it.”
“This should be interesting.” Looking only mildly intrigued, Adam sat up, legs swinging towards me as he gave me his complete attention. “Go ahead; dazzle me with your Mercy-like skills.”
Read more..
At the risk of jinxing myself, I’m gonna go with the notion that spring is definitely here and we can kiss all the snow goodbye! (Thank God! The white stuff is pretty, but I hate driving in it!) With the month of April, I have another resolution to add to the list. I’m happy to report that since the beginning of the year, I’ve stuck to all of my resolutions, adding a new one each month. So far I’m exercising 5 days a week, I’ve given up fried foods and baked desserts and now I’ll be giving up all fast food barring sandwich places. That’s not to say I won’t get a salad and a baked potato at Wendy’s if that’s my only option, because I don’t think that’s a no no, but no more burgers or burritos and such. April is birthday month for us around the house for myself, my husband and my oldest daughter, so we’ll see how hard it is to stick to the no baked desserts resolution!
I have to say March was a weird month for me. I saw a lot of success from the Pretty Witches giveaway and I published Mercy for the Damned, so the business of being a writer went very well. Creatively, I finished up my Push fanfic, but did little else in the world of writing. I’ve been working on my upcoming book and let me tell you, I can’t remember the last time I was in such a wishy washy mood!
I’m supposed to be working on Let Sleeping Ghosts Lie, a paranormal mystery/ghosty book similar to The Touch. But instead, I’ve been inundated with all manner of other plot ideas, each vying for a spot at my next book. I’ve even gone so far as to do some major plotting on several of these ideas, hoping one of them would pull forward as the clear winner with the hopes of starting it this month.
Well, I’ll tell you, the end of March came and I found myself no closer to picking what project to begin. Each idea has merit, but none of them were grabbing hold in just that right way that tells me it’s the next one to focus on. So, instead of writing a new book, I’ll be dusting off Moonsong, the first book I wrote about two years ago. My writing has evolved quite a bit since then, and it needs a bit of work to get it whipped into shape for publication, but that’s what I’ll be working on next. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready to go by month’s end. That means a jump start on working on the sequel to Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down or letting my other book ideas fight to the death with chopsticks to see what book comes after that, but we’ll see where we are when I come to the other side of this one.
Okay, so remember how I said free giveaways are not a magic bullet? That point was definitely proven last weekend when I tried a free giveaway for Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down. I knew it wouldn’t do as well as Pretty Witches, since that’s my best seller, but I only gave away about 2500 copies in three days. Dude. Seriously? I can not give this book away. Talk about depressing.
On the plus side, I’ve gotten some very nice reviews and emails from people telling me how much they enjoyed the book and can’t wait for the sequel, so that’s nice to hear. But I can’t say that it really boosted sales all that much.
My numbers are still on their slow decline, but still waaaaay better than they were before the first giveaway, and I’m getting a nice mix of sales across all six books, so that tells me that people are coming back for more, which is nice too.
My 3 month period with KDP select is ending this month, so I’ve got another Pretty Witches free giveaway slated for March 23 and 24th, so we’ll see if that does as well as the first giveaway earlier this month. Hopefully it gives the numbers a little shot in the arm so I can finish out the month a little stronger.
