Aftermath of the Free Weekend & Extra

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Yahoo Image Search

The total downloads for Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero was . . . 549.  Not bad considering my previous luck and the genre.  I only made it to #7 on the list because of a few heavy hitters in the Permafree arena.  Good job to them for snagging those spots and ruling since it looks like they earned triple digit reviews.  One downside to a free weekend is that the book returns to the Paid Lists with a brutal ranking.  #137,067 and the book hasn’t been in the 6-digit region since it’s first week.  Ah well, such is the trade off of the publishing world.

Now a few writer notes and news:

  1. Check out a very good post on The Literary Syndicate.  Papi Z talks about how authors should handle negative reviews to avoid getting labeled a Badly Behaving Author.
  2. I joined a new author site a while back and I’ve been playing with it before bringing it up here.  It’s called iAuthor and it’s fairly new.  You can login with Facebook or Twitter to make things easier.  Once you’re in, set up your profile, set up your books, and make friends.  The best part about this site is that you can create a THEME to attach your book to and connect your book to other theme sections.  For example, I created an ‘Epic Fantasy Series’ theme and connected my books to it and 3 other books were added by other authors.  Anyone who searches for Fantasy can find this theme and you can create anything.  Strong Female Protagonists, Books Straddling Multiple Genres, Books that Lay Bare the Human Condition, and so many others.  The sky is the limited here and you can get your books into any groups that you can fit it into.  Just make sure it fits.
  3. It is with a heavy heart that I announce the demotion of the major villain in one of my future series.  I took time to finish a plot path over the weekend and he didn’t make it through the final battle.  His son will take his place for the rest of the series while his dismembered hand wanders the castle looking for something to do.  These things happen and I thank him for all his years of service.
  4. The sixth hero in Legends of Windemere is coming out . . . funny.  I had this vision of leaping mood swings, but it didn’t happen.  She’s apologetic to a fault, kind of timid, and trying way to hard to endear herself to the others.  I still get the sense of broken from her, but it isn’t shattered like I expected.  If anything, you can tell she’s never had a real friend and doesn’t know how to act around people.

Well, that’s all the news I have.  I wish I had an update on Legends of Windemere: Family of the Tri-Rune.  Final edits should be done over the weekend and then it’s up to the cover art.  I’m not sure if I should make a call for volunteers for the Cover Reveal and Blog Tour until I have certain dates.  Anyone have a suggestions here?

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Guest Author S.K. Nicholls

A very informative interview with author S.K. Nicholls.

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Only a Few Hours Left!

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

ONLY A FEW HOURS LEFT TO GET LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE: BEGINNING OF A HERO FOR FREE!!!!!

DON’T FORGOT TO GRAB PRODIGY OF RAINBOW TOWER & ALLURE OF THE GYPSIES TOO!!!

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover by Jason Pedersen

Cover by Jason Pedersen

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Author Interview: Charles E. Yallowitz

Check out my interview on Knite Writes. Don’t forget to check out his book ‘Echoes’ on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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The Jewish Rune Reader

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Yahoo Image Search

For those that didn’t realize it, I’m Jewish.  Not that great at being Jewish, but that’s what I identify as.  This is necessary information for this college story.

Back in college, I befriended a variety of people and tended to get adopted by some odd groups.  For example, I somehow got brought along for events run by the Latino Student Association.  Not really sure how that came about beyond my roommate being Puerto Rican and pledging to them.  I just happened to be standing there and . . . alcohol was involved, so you know where this went.  By the way, I did go to a meeting of the Jewish Student Association and it wasn’t very interesting.

Anyway, I became friends with several Wiccans and went along for a bunch of their events because it was fun.  One event was a table being run at an Earth Day celebration.  I went along to help set things up and make sure none of the gear was taken.  My title was ‘Pack Jew’ and the promise of pizza was my payment.  It ended up being Chinese food, but college Charles never turned down free food.

Well, I was helping unpack and I pulled out a bag of Rune Stones and a book on how to use them.  It was something new and nobody had bothered to figure them out yet.  I sat down in the corner to read the book since I forgot a notebook.  Somebody mentioned going for food and I mumbled my order.  Time passed and I hear someone talking to me.  I look up to see members of the African American SA and the Latino SA standing there.  We were in the middle of them.  This is when I noticed something:

I WAS ALONE!

The Wiccans left the Jew at the Pagan Student Association table!  A few people were curious and I did the best I could with the questions.  I had to admit that I wasn’t allowed to touch the tarot cards.  There’s the belief that one never touches another person’s deck without permission because of the energy in the cards.  That’s an overview, but it also meant I couldn’t tell fortunes like they wanted.  Then they saw what I was reading and I realized that nobody had claimed the rune stones . . . I’ll skip to the comedy here.

The Wiccans returned to find the Jew reading Nordic Rune Stones to a crowd.  I had figured them out pretty easily and was having fun.  A conversation started about me and the following question was asked:  WHO LEFT THE JEW ALONE HERE?  That seemed to confuse everyone because suddenly I wasn’t supposed to have any knowledge of what I was doing.  Tarot readings were done and I kept going with the runes, which caused quite a lot of fun during the overall event.

Sadly, I have no idea where the rune stones I was given later have gone too.  I think I lost them when packing up in Florida.

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A Review of Red Clay and Roses and Giveaway Reminder

Enter a Giveaway before it ends on March 3rd! FREE BOOK!

S.K. Nicholls's avatarS.K. Nicholls

Rosie Amber, one of my favorite book bloggers, has a new review up of “Red Clay and Roses”.

You can see it here:  http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-4Ge

Although the  99 cent sale was supposed to end Sunday night, it will remain in progress until all platforms can get the price changed back to $3.99. Amazon will be last.

The Goodreads Giveaway is still in progress through March 3rd. Check it out if you haven’t already:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Red Clay and Roses by S.K. Nicholls

Red Clay and Roses

by S.K. Nicholls

Giveaway ends March 03, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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Happy Birthday, Beginning of a Hero!

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

LAST DAY TO GET LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE: BEGINNING OF A HERO FOR FREE!

A year ago, I published the first of my fantasy series on Amazon and took that first step toward my goal of being an author.  Yes, I never thought I would go Indie when I was in high school, but I’m glad I did.  I have 3 books out that have done very well and 3 more that I plan on releasing this year.  I’m happy that I worked through the negative reviews, notification of typos, stress-induced stomach pain, cracked wisdom tooth, insulting emails, and all the hardships that I didn’t know were part of the game.  This isn’t an easy path and I’ve survived a year of it.

A big part of my survival is all the support I found on WordPress.  So, a big THANK YOU to every who helped me get here.

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Book Review: Beginning of a Hero

A new review of Beginning of a Hero. Remember that it’s FREE for the next 2 days.

Marie A Bailey's avatarMarie at 1 Write Way

Today I finished Beginning of a Hero by Charles E. Yallowitz, just in time to again encourage readers to take advantage of the book’s current FREE status.

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Here’s the book description from Amazon:

Take a step into the magical world of Windemere where history is forged by brave adventurers.

Luke Callindor was born into Windemere’s most decorated family of adventurers. Since his birth, he has been treated with the greatest amount of respect and awe. Now, with a lifetime of training and the reckless cockiness of youth, Luke has set out to prove that he deserves the admiration that comes from being a Callindor.

Luke gets his chance when he convinces a royal messenger to hire him to protect the heir of Duke Solomon. This future leader is secretly attending Hamilton Military Academy, an esteemed school run by the former mercenary, Selenia Hamilton. It is…

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Ways to Get My First Book FREE!

Looking for a free book?

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Goals for the Grindstone

Last week was the toddler’s Winter Break.  It was a week of bounce houses, jungle gyms, library trips, snowmen, and grocery shopping trips.  He also had his first visit to the dentist, which went smoothly.  A little fake crying at the beginning, but he got over it once they gave him the drool sucker to control.  So, it was a week full of adventures that have left me exhausted.  I tried to get extra sleep today, but it feels like that only made the problem worse.  The weather jumping from icy rain to high 40’s in a 24-hour period probably didn’t help.

Writing progress saw 2 chapters done because the Olympics made sure there was nothing on TV.  This book is a lot of mystery and talking at the beginning.  I’ve slipped in as much action as I can, but I’m really working the dialogue here.  With the characters kind of trapped for the first act, I couldn’t really do much and a lot happened in the previous book that needed to be aired out.  I think seeing so many people point out that my books are dialogue heavy (a necessity for present tense third person information spreading) has me paranoid.  The exhaustion amplifies that and I’m simply ranting at this point.  The events are solid for a first draft, so I should be happy with that.

Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero got a good push on its first FREE day.  320 downloads, #7 on Fantasy Action/Adventure, #12 on Sword & Sorcery, and #16 on Epic Fantasy.  I hope it keeps going in the next two days.  The other books haven’t changed much since this started.  A few sales on each.

The plan is still for a March release of Family of the Tri-Rune and I should be spending next weekend adding in the final edits and formatting for Kindle and Createspace.  I don’t know if I should call for Cover Reveal and Blog Tour volunteers before I have the cover art.  I’m going to do the blog tour a week after the debut to make sure I have all the correct information in the file.  I’m also going to only do a few days of Hype instead of a full week.  Cover reveal, a question that pertains to the book, dividing first section over the course of a day, and a weekend Twubs chat.  Might combine the question and the chat on the same day.  If anything I’ll be interested to see how my advertising division plan works.  I took all the sites I use and split them into Month 1 and Month 2 categories.  It’ll take a full day to get it all set up though.

Goals for the week:

  1. Write 3 chapters of Sleeper of the Wildwood Fugue.  Finally getting to Bor’daruk now that the newest hero has been recruited.  I should be able to get to the Sari/Kira encounter if things go smoothly.
  2. Cook a few dinners this week.
  3. For today: Continue repairing the notes for Elysium Saga.
  4. The usual exercise, shower, food, and sleep activities.

It’s going to be a rather low key week from the sound of things.

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