R.D. Vallier's Blog, page 2

Wordlwide Giveaway Book-Art

Here it is! The giveaway ends in 3 days!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkshine


by R.D. Vallier

Giveaway ends July 17, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Giveaway Artwork

I realized I’ve been drawing all animals for my giveaways. A windstorm wiped out my roses, and roses play a part in Darkshine, so I figured I’d draw one for the current worldwide giveaway. (Plus I haven’t drawn a rose in about a decade!) Here are the pencil, ink, and color versions of my test drawing. The giveaway ends in 5 days!




Some family issues have sprung up and turned my schedule into a whirlwind. Looks like I’ll be driving through Delano’s territory soon, and possibly some upcoming news. (Everything is play-by-ear right now.)

IndieBRAG’s cover contest is still accepting votes, too!

Cover Contest & Interview

IndieBRAG was kind enough to nominate Darkshine for their cover contest. :) It is open for public vote and I’d appreciate any votes. They are offering some wonderful prizes (listed below... They made us banners! How cool is that??). Plus it gives a nice tour of cover art during the voting process. https://www.bragmedallion.com/indiebr...


Stephanie Hopkins was also kind enough to interview me on her webpage, Layered Pages. If you’re interested, it can be viewed here: https://layeredpages.com/2017/06/30/i...

I hope all of you are having a great weekend. :)

Free Darkshine Short Stories, Dark Ember Release & General Updates

I’ve been slacking on my updates. Got some good & bad (kinda disguised as good, as I try to convince myself).

First, I’ve been getting some great, constructive feedback from several of my betas about Dark Ember. I’m really excited with what I can do with their comments and suggestions, and I really like what the story is becoming. This might push me out closer to autumn, however, which leads me to ...

I am very fortunate in that I get to work with a publicist this round. Frankly, I don’t know what I’m doing on my own. I just throw things at the wall to see what sticks. Well, apparently, if I get to close to the end of the year any publicity I do will get buried because the big publishing houses push for the holidays. So all my hard work in that matter will get buried. Which means I’d have to wait to release...until after the holiday season. (Wait! Come back!) I very much do not want to do this, but I think that is my own ego and need to meet goals pushing me. I’d much rather give a better product and give that product the attention it needs. I’m working on book 3 (Dark Cinders), and hopefully I will learn my lesson and get it out smoother when its time comes.

But that leads me to...

I decided to work on some Darkshine short stories, which I’ll send out for free only to members of my e-mail list. Right now I’m working on a short about Miriam’s changeling life, but other character perspectives will pop up in the future. I’m not sure when they’ll be released as I’m working on them only as I steal time, but I’ll get there. (In the last year I have sent out zero emails, so you don’t have to worry about me crowding your inbox! haha!)

Anyway, that’s about it. The cover got pushed out until August, but I’ll share photos when the time comes. On the homestead, we’ve been dealing with fruit trees this year, and I’m starting construction on the hallway, which I hope to make looks like a slice of castle. But I tend to change my mind mid-build, so we’ll see.

Hope everyone is doing wonderful. :)

National Indie Excellence Award

Yipee!! Darkshine won a fantasy finalist award in the National Indie Excellence Award!! Thank you NIEA! :)

I’m also running a Darkshine ebook read-for-review giveaway over at LibraryThing. I have 100 available, and it ends in 1 week. Here’s the link to the giveaway page: http://www.librarything.com/er/giveaw...

My paperback giveaway on Goodreads is still going on, too. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

New Worldwide Giveaway

The newest worldwide giveaway launched. :) Thanks Goodreads for hosting these! One book available, signed and illustrated. I'm thinking a fox this time. Ends July17th.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkshine


by R.D. Vallier

Giveaway ends July 17, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Kindle Unlimited Update

Just an FYI: Darkshine will be taken off Kindle Unlimited for a bit on May 22nd, 2017. Amazon's contract won't let me tinker with some promotions if I have it up.

Yurt Build

This went nothing as expected. Not only did freakish winter weather postpone the build, I ended up getting a concussion out of it as well. This is, by far, my least favorite aspect of the homestead build so far. I’d rather work with rocks, straw, timber, and mud.

But! It’s up! My husband punched through the straw wall, and created a hallway for a whopping $12, to get access. We finally have “bedrooms.” Well, it is still in construction, and punching through straw walls creates an unbelievable amount of dust. Below are the photos of the deck build and putting up the frame and “the parachute.” (More on that below.)

Not shown is the insulation and the inside. I’ll post those after we have this mess cleaned up.

First, we needed to build a deck at the back of the house. We never limed the cob back there because we knew we were going to destroy it.



Finished deck. (We installed laminate over the top.)



Frame erected. (Where I got the concussion.)



Since we insulated the yurt (eventually), we needed to lay fabric over the frame. Otherwise, you’d see the insulation. Pricing fabric, it was going to be really expensive and, worst of all, would potentially require a lot of sewing I did not have time for. So I came up with the idea to drop an old military surplus parachute over the thing. It worked surprisingly well.



Here is the inside looking up.



We eventually added insulation, but a storm was coming so we threw the canvas on without until the next day.



More to come! Thanks for stopping by. :)

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Congrats to Lori in New Mexico for winning the worldwide giveaway! (Out of 3,496 entrants! Wow!) I'll be getting that out to you either today or tomorrow. :)

Since the winner ended up being in the USA, thus keeping my shipping costs low, I will launch another worldwide giveaway in the near future.

Amazon Giveaway! Yay 2000+!

Darkshine has been added by 2000 unique Goodreads users!* Here's the Amazon Giveaway I promised, 2 ebooks available, first come first serve. Feel free to share.

*Okay, technically it was a few days ago, but its $0.99 Kindle Countdown Sale started today, so I waited for the cheaper price. ;)