Auryn Hadley's Blog, page 13

Sneak Peek at BloodLust: Rise of the Iliri

Chapter 1

Weaving through the large, dark–skinned bodies of the soldiers around her, Sal touched the paper in her pocket like a talisman. It gave her the chance to apply to the Black Blades. They were the best of the best, but the last people she thought would take her seriously. At least they’d given her a chance. Now, she just had to prove that an iliri could be as good as any human. Easier said than done.

Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t see the blue-clad shoulder until it slammed in...

Sneak Peak at BloodLust: Rise of the Iliri

Chapter 1

Weaving through the large, dark–skinned bodies of the soldiers around her, Sal touched the paper in her pocket like a talisman. It gave her the chance to apply to the Black Blades. They were the best of the best, but the last people she thought would take her seriously. At least they’d given her a chance. Now, she just had to prove that an iliri could be as good as any human. Easier said than done.

Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t see the blue-clad shoulder until it slammed in...

If I see another gamer, it will be all too soon

I’m trying hard to get ahead of my release schedule. That means I’m typically working on a book a couple ahead of what is planned for release next month. If you look at the list on my sidebar (on aurynhadley.com) I’m working on the book that comes AFTER the last one listed. In this case, it’s another book in the Eternal Combat series.

And right now I really can’t stand gamers. I said this before when I was working on the gladiators. When I’m done tweaking every last comma, semicolon, turn of...

Cover Re-design (Kinda)

The Wolf of Oberhame series has always been the hardest for me to design the “right” cover for. I have struggled with it repeatedly, but thanks to the magic of Amazon, I actually get the chance to try again, and again, and even again if I still haven’t gotten it right.

And, let’s be honest, I’m not exactly some veteran author who has been there, done that, and knows exactly what will grab the reader. I need to experiment a little.

On the flip side, Ihave the luxury of being able to make my ow...

Being the Outsider

At some point in our lives, I think we’ve all felt like an outsider. It doesn’t matter if you’re cool – or not, rich, poor, or anything in between. There will always be some dividing line that separates us from the rest of the group.

Of course there’s the biggies like race, sexual orientation, and religion/politics. But the minor things can feel the same. Maybe it was that time that you were the piano player in the midst of the drummers. How about being the star football player at the ballet...

The long road

Have you ever had that feeling that you’re chasing your tail, trying to do it right, but won’t “get there” until you do just one more, or two more, or maybe three more things?

That’s how I feel right now. I have 2 new series being released, but advertising them is frustrating. Why dump a lot of money into them until there’s something for the reader to go to next time? I have a series that will be finished in late summer. Not releasing the other books won’t make it get done any faster. I have...

What is Indie Author Success?

I research my profession – a lot. Ok, kinda obsessively. None of the data seems to be consistent, until I realized I was asking the wrong question.

I wanted to know what percentage of independent authors are successful. Well, that’s a real broad term, isn’t it? What does that word mean? Above the median? Profitable? Able to quit their day job? Millionaires? Until I defined the question better, there’s no way I was going to get a good answer.

So, what does it mean to be successful? For me, I h...

STUCK!

The plot is all twisted. The subplots aren’t wanting to fall into place. The tie-in to the rest of the series is refusing to cooperate in a manner that makes sense. I’m stuck.

I know, from someone who writes an absolutely insane amount of words a day, how is this possible, right? (I was just padding my own ego there, forgive me). But seriously, the truth is that this happens to everyone. I usually solve it by breaking down the story. Not the book. Not the novel. The core story.

For One More D...

How I produce a Book/month

So I keep getting asked how I plan to release a FINISHED book each month. The answer is very simple, really. I wrote them all years ago.

What, not the answer you wanted to hear? Probably not. So many people are trying desperately to crank out work fast enough to bump them up the lists, often thinking only of volume, not quality. I went the other way. I had stories to tell, and hoped that one day they’d become “real” books. Yeah, except that whole “real” part was never well defined in my head....

Refreshing doesn’t make it faster

Contrary to popular belief, hitting F5 doesn’t really help anything. I know, I’ve been doing it all day. Some is watching the internal hype for the release of Challenge Accepted later tonight. Some is watching the ads that I mentioned yesterday. Mostly…I’m in between writing assignments, and don’t have the spare time to get sucked into Tristan and Leyli until tomorrow night.

So, I’m plotting. I have a few hiccups in a few books that I need to work out. I also have a raging headache that is be...