Tracy Cooper-Posey's Blog, page 16
December 7, 2022
A Kickstarter campaign worth checking out.
I’m kinda excited about this, even though it’s not my books or series that are involved. My publisher, Stories Rule Press, has just launched their first Kickstarter campaign, featuring fellow SRP author Taylen Carver’s urban fantasy series, Magorian & Jones, and the newest book in that series, The Rivers Ran Red.
I mentioned Kickstarter this morning in the BookFunnel email, but for this post, which goes out to everyone, I wanted to focus specifically on the SRP project.
If you’ve never stopped by Kickstarter or sponsored a campaign, if you have no idea what Kickstarter is, then the simplest way to describe it is as a very fun way to shop for new books. An author will start a Kickstarter campaign that will help fund the release of a book, or a boxed set, or an audio edition…there’s all sorts of project types just in the publishing side of Kickstarter.
You as a sponsor get to pick which level of sponsorship you want. Each level will come with bonuses and goodies. Maybe you’d prefer the print version, or the deluxe leatherbound version, or you want all of the books that came before this one…. The bonuses and goodies are only limited by the campaign builder’s imagination.
For example, Brandon Sanderson recently ran a Kickstarter campaign that included limited edition, signed, leather-bound copies of his latest book. He raised nearly $50 million dollars for the project!
There are some amazing projects to be found there. Perhaps in the near future, one of them will be mine. 
Check out Taylen Carver’s project here.
Cheers,
December 1, 2022
A Christmas Romance release, just in time for Christmas!
There is a vast difference between how the southern hemisphere celebrates Christmas and how the northern hemisphere celebrates Christmas. But weirdly, there are some remarkable similarities, because Christmas was exported from Up-Over. I grew up eating mince pies and fruit cake on Christmas Day, along with all the other traditional meal ingredients. Although we ate roast chicken, rather than roast turkey.
In the south, we were buried in northern hemisphere images of Christmas. Movies, Christmas cards, and all the retail advertising featured snow and sleighs, etc. So when I moved to Canada, a traditional northern Christmas didn’t feel all that odd to me. It was enormous fun to eat a roast dinner with snow visible through the window.
But northern hemisphere residents have a harder time adapting to Christmas Down Under. It just doesn’t feel right to most of them — or so any Up Over guests always told us.
If you’ve never experienced Christmas in summer, then you will find Burying His Ghost of Christmas Past a small taste of what it would feel like, for the story is set in the north of Western Australia. Up there, the people who live and work on cattle stations live a very different life. Celebrating Christmas is a unique experience.
Burying His Ghost of Christmas Past was released today on all retailers, and is also available on my site, too. It’s available in ebook and print (and the print edition is so cute!!)
Just in time for Christmas, “masterful” (Romantic Times Magazine) author Tracy Cooper-Posey gives us a Christmas romance story that only she could write.
Nearly twenty years ago, Dane walked away from Narelle on the eve of their wedding. To escape the humiliation, Narelle fled from outback Australia to big city New York, to focus on her career.
Now she’s back home for Christmas, with every intention of burying the last of her feelings about Dane by good, old-fashioned confrontation….
A Christmas-in-Australia, second chance romance short story that you really don’t want to miss from an Amazon #1 Bestseller in Short Fiction.
Buy from Me @ SRP
Buy from your favourite retailer
Enjoy!
November 29, 2022
Today is the start of our 4 day 20% off Everything sale
For the next four days, when you buy books at Stories Rule Press, you get 20% off your entire shopping basket, with no strings or exceptions:
The discount applies to everything, including pre-orders, books already on sale and whole series boxed sets.It includes books by all authors at SRP, not just me.You can use the coupon as often as you like before it expires at midnight on December 2nd.You can give the coupon code to book-lover friends and family.If you’ve never bought books from SRP before, there’s no need to worry. All the books you buy from SRP are delivered by BookFunnel, so the process is very similar to how you download books from BookFunnel promos.
To start browsing the books available, click here. On that page you can sort and filter titles to find exactly what you want.
When you check out, use this code: 3VVX4TXV
It will apply the 20% discount to your whole order.
Enjoy!
Tracy
November 17, 2022
Are you ready for Christmas yet?
This is the first post I’ve written since getting out of hospital for the second time. One of the things I’ve discovered since I got home (beside the fact that my slippers are able to move independently, because they were not where I left them when I went to hospital), is that I have not updated anyone here on this blog and newsletter about my health issues and the impact on my books.
I’ve spoken about it freely on Facebook, as so many people have asked for updates, but I overlooked readers who may only keep up with my news here on my site.
I will correct that in the next week or so.
In the meantime, we’re two weeks out from the release of Burying His Ghost of Christmas Past.
I normally run a longish excerpt two weeks out, but as this is a short story, that will be, well, giving away the farm, so to speak. (Or in the case of this story, I would be giving away the station.)
Instead, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that even though Burying His Ghost of Christmas Past is a short story, there is a print edition. It’s one of those cute little chapbook style booklets, with the full glossy cover and the same contents as the ebook — which includes as essay from me about Christmas, Australian style.
I was thinking that if you’re looking for last minute Christmas gifts, stocking stuffers, etc., and your gift recipient is a reader, the print edition would make a no-brainer gift.
Just in time for Christmas, “masterful” (Romantic Times Magazine) author Tracy Cooper-Posey gives us a Christmas romance story that only she could write.Nearly twenty years ago, Dane walked away from Narelle on the eve of their wedding. To escape the humiliation, Narelle fled from outback Australia to big city New York, to focus on her career.
Now she’s back home for Christmas, with every intention of burying the last of her feelings about Dane by good, old-fashioned confrontation….
A Christmas-in-Australia, second chance romance short story that you really don’t want to miss from an Amazon #1 Bestseller in Short Fiction.
As usual, if you pre-order directly from me, on the SRP site, you get your copy a week before everyone else — that is, next week. Or if you don’t like pre-orders, you can just buy a copy directly from me next Thursday and still get your copy a week early.
All other retail stores will release the book on December 1.
Buy from Me @ SRP
Buy from your favourite retailer
Take care, stay well.
October 31, 2022
A Halloween Romance giveaway. THREE TAPS, THEN….
Noah always knocked on Aysel’s door the same way, including the last time he knocked, five hours after his funeral.
A short and sweet Halloween treat.This is a short story. You could enjoy a long coffee and the story for dessert.This story is part of the Short Paranormals collection.Eva’s Last DanceSolstice SurrenderThree Taps, Then…*The Well of Rnomath*
Samhain Crossing
A Short, Sexy Paranormal RomanceTo download your copy, head to: https://tracycooperposey.com/three-taps-then/. IF you’re already subscribed to my email list, then you’ll get the usual acknowledgement along with the download link.Also, a quick reminder that my Samhain story, Samhain Crossing, was also written specifically for Halloween, and released only a few days ago.They recognize each other across twenty centuries.
On the ancient Celtic feast day of Imbolc, a mysterious, but empty, box is discovered, built into a wall of a first century structure in the ruins of Carn Euny in Britain. Itching for distraction, the dig team drop a note into the box, and the next morning find an answer written in ancient Latin.Dig director, Doctor Daria Caitini, declares the response a hoax, but when more and more letters arrive on each successive Celtic feast day, Daria finds herself drawn into corresponding with the writer, a first century druid called Cadfan, who is hunted by the Romans, and who recognizes her dedication to her work and her essential loneliness, too…. This story is part of the Short Paranormals collection.Eva’s Last DanceSolstice SurrenderThree Taps, Then…*The Well of Rnomath*
Samhain Crossing
A Short, Sexy Paranormal Romance Buy from your favorite retailer!
Enjoy your Halloween, everyone!
October 30, 2022
20% off EVERYTHING, 4 days only end of month SRP Sale now on
Along with all your Halloween candy, you can snag fiction from Stories Rule Press at 20% off for the next four days. This is the usual SRP month end/start sale.
Use the coupon code AWWEWYRA when you check out, to apply a 20% discount to your entire basket.
Which means that any already discounted books in your basket are discounted a further 20%.You can buy as many books as you want. There is no limit.You can re-use the coupon code as many times as you want until it expires at midnight on November 2nd. (MDT)You can give the coupon code to friends and fellow readers, too.The coupon code will discount everything, including boxed sets, series sets, etc.The coupon is only valid for the Stories Rule Press site. You can start browsing here.
Enjoy!
Tracy
October 20, 2022
Crawling my way back to work… new PNR release for Halloween
This is the first day I’ve managed to focus long enough to string sentences together. Not sure how long that will last for, so for now, let’s just cut straight to the chase.
Today is the release of Samhain Crossing, a short romance I wrote just for Halloween this year, and I finished it only a few days before the SHTF. I really loved writing this one. It’s quirky and just a little bit different, but still an interesting read.
Since I came home from hospital, I’ve been reading a lot of books… actually, no, I’ve *started* a lot of books, and put them aside, because all I wanted was to read an entertaining story told well. It seems that stories that are simply told are becoming more difficult to find. Or perhaps I’m just looking in the wrong place.
So I thought that, instead, as my energy improves, I’ll write those stories I can’t find. Why not? I’m more or less stuck on this recliner for quite a while. I may as well use the time for one of my most preferred activities in the entire world.
And you reap the benefits, too.
So let’s see how this goes….
They recognize each other across twenty centuries.
On the ancient Celtic feast day of Imbolc, a mysterious, but empty, box is discovered, built into a wall of a first century structure in the ruins of Carn Euny in Britain. Itching for distraction, the dig team drop a note into the box, and the next morning find an answer written in ancient Latin.
Dig director, Doctor Daria Caitini, declares the response a hoax, but when more and more letters arrive on each successive Celtic feast day, Daria finds herself drawn into corresponding with the writer, a first century druid called Cadfan, who is hunted by the Romans, and who recognizes her dedication to her work and her essential loneliness, too….
Buy from Me @ SRP
Buy from your favourite retailer
Enjoy!
October 6, 2022
Threesome Awesomeness has Arrived!
Four Awesome Threesomes is now available for only 99c. Check it out, get a good sample of several different series I’ve written and let me know your favourite!
A Delectable Sampler. Four Threesome Romances from Four Threesome Series…Four Awesome Threesomes includes four first books in four of Tracy Cooper-Posey’s best selling urban fantasy and paranormal time travelling series, for you to sample the range and style of her signature MMF romances. The set includes twenty+ pages of interstitial essays by the author, giving the history of each series and how each book came to be.
Bannockburn Binding, from the Beloved Bloody Time series
Amazon Best Seller – Top 100 (#5)
#1 Amazon Time Travel Romance Bestseller
#1 Amazon Fantasy Romance Bestseller
Reviewers’ Top Pick —The Romance Reviews
Nominated Erotic Paranormal Book of the Year 2011—The Romance Reviews
Time is theirs to keep. But it comes with a price.
When Tally, vampire and time traveler, takes her client to the siege of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage by Robert MacKenzie. Rob is drawn to the very different English lady. Christian, vampire, a southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker well enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival adds complications, for Christian is drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is. But neither of them can stay in the past forever. To do so means certain death.
Kiss Across Time, from the Kiss Across Time series
Amazon #1 Bestseller, Vampire Romance
Amazon #1 Bestseller, Paranormal Romance
Amazon #1 Bestseller, Time Travel Romance
Night Owl Romance Reviews Reviewer’s Top Pick
A single kiss spins them across time.
Taylor wants to prove that the 6th century poet, Inigo Domhnall, actually existed. She hears Domhnall’s lyrics in a death metal song, and engineers a meeting with the singer, Brody Gallagher. When Brody kisses her, they are thrust back in time to King Arthur’s court, telling Taylor he is more than a simple rock singer. When Taylor kisses his friend and lover, Veris, they are sent back into a different time, too.
Blood Knot, from the Blood Stone series
#1 Amazon Best-Seller – Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost Romance
Amazon Best-seller – Vampire Romance
Winner, Coffee Time Reviewer’s Recommended Award
Goodread’s “Most Drool-worthy Covers”
Erotic Vampire Book of the Year, The Romance Reviews, 2011
CAPA Nomination, Best Paranormal Book of the Year, The Romance Studio, 2011
To survive they must trust each other. Only…can they?
Winter, a professional thief who can manipulate others’ biologies by touch, accidentally “healed” her former partner—and former vampire—Sebastian, whom she secretly loves. Her healing created a bond between them that neither wants. Nathanial, a thousand-year-old vampire and Sebastian’s ex-lover, talks Sebastian and Winter into stealing evidence that will expose all vampires to the world….
Beth’s Acceptance, from the Destiny’s Trinities series
2009 CAPA Finalist for Best Erotic Paranormal Romance.
Night Owl Romance Reviewer’s Top Pick
Amazon Superhero Romance Bestseller
Amazon Vampire Romance Bestseller
Can she accept the destiny being thrust at her?
For weeks, the darkly sinful Zachariah, her favourite customer at McGinty’s, has been driving Beth crazy with need. Neither can she keep the tall, mysterious Luke who haunts the stacks at her day job, out of her sweaty fantasies. Fate hands Beth a startling destiny: to bond with both of them… Can Beth accept the price the bond will ask of her?
A Vampire Time Travel MMF Romance Collection
September 29, 2022
My, How Movies Have Changed!
Since moving to Canada in 1996, I have been slowly replacing all the books I sold to finance moving here with ebook copies. Sometimes those copies have been slow to acquire because the books weren’t yet issued in ebook format.
I’m very happy that traditional publishers are finally getting a clue and re-issuing their backlists in ebook format. (Although in some cases, the traditional publishers still don’t seem to know how to properly format an ebook!)
There’s a few hold outs, yet – I’m waiting patiently for Peter O’Donnell’s estate to figure they can make some nice money and get all his Modesty Blaise books into ebook format.
But I’m also very happy that Alistair McLean’s estate have got with the times, and all his books have been recently re-issued in ebook. He wasn’t my most favourite action & adventure author (Desmond Bagley held that laurel for years until…well, that’s another story).
Anyway, it has been at least twenty-five years since I read any Alistair McLean novels, and I picked up one of my favourites of his, The Way to Dusty Death (one of the very last he wrote), and found it hadn’t aged too badly at all. Although the hero is so alpha it makes your teeth ache.
So I picked up another long time favourite of his, Where Eagles Dare.
My, my.
I strongly suspect that the last time I read Where Eagles Dare was well before I decided I would pursue writing fiction as a career. And now I’ve picked it up again, after twenty-five years.
So the structure of the novel leapt out and smacked me upside the face.
You see, it’s the perfect plot. It’s absolutely flawless, action every page, non-stop twists and turns. An adrenaline ride.
And it has absolutely zero character development. None. The characters in the book were there to advance the plot, and from the beginning of the book to the end of the book, they didn’t change a single iota.
I had to have a good think about it after I’d read the book, because I don’t think I’ve come across a book quite like it, that is absolutely 100% plot, with not a stitch of character in it, that is also a wham-bam, highly entertaining read.
And because I found the technicalities of the structure so interesting from a writer’s perspective, I talked Mark into watching the movie with me. Why the movie? Because it’s 2.5 hours invested, rather than ten or more reading the book. It’s a shorthand way of getting the story into your head. I only wanted Mark to consume the story so I could talk about the fascinating aspects of a story that works without character development in it.
To be able to see how a plot works flawlessly without character getting in the way is like a doctor able to see inside a patient’s body with Superman’s vision, instead of using indirect imaging like x-rays and MRIs.
So Mark sat down to watch Where Eagles Dare with me.
The movie was released in 1968, and the screenplay was written by Alistair McLean himself, at the same time he wrote the book. So I was fairly confident that the movie would represent the book closely.
We were both braced for the slow pacing of older movies, too. Even though this was a run away best seller in both movie and book form, and was touted the best action adventure movie of the year and the decade, and a lot of other breathless honorifics, we knew that it had probably aged and were ready for it.
Oh. My. God.
It was a cringe-fest.
The pacing was every bit as slow as we’d braced for, if not even slower.
It’s watching stories trickle out at this sort of speed that makes me understand and appreciate why movie producers and TV show runners remake so much old stuff.
It’s not just because the original was a great seller and an updated version would make money, too. It’s also because modern audiences just won’t sit still for the tortoise speed of story telling from those decades. I’m thinking 1960s and earlier, and also up to 1970s (as we just watched The Eiger Sanction, made around 1974, and that had a creaking pace, too).
But the pace of the movie wasn’t the biggest issue. We were ready for that.
The problem was, the producers and/or director made changes to the script that changed the story slightly from what was in the book. All of it was “minor” stuff, that didn’t change the major storyline at all…or at least, that’s what I’m sure they were thinking, when they made the changes.
In fact, the changes they made were…well…stoopid.
The commando team parachutes into Austria, and are behind enemy lines. They have to climb down from a mountain pass into a town full of German Alpine Corps soldiers to complete their mission. Ten minutes after they land on the mountain pass, the team member carrying the radio is found dead. And that’s not even where the movie began to change from the book. It changed right from the credits onwards. But this was the first one that made my eyes roll.
In the movie, Eastwood straightens up, puts his hands on either side of his mouth, and shouts “Major!!!”, to bring Richard Burton over to see what’s happened.
In mountains.
In winter, with lots of reflective ice and snow.
Behind enemy lines.
It wasn’t the only stupid change. It was just the first. They also left windows uncurtained, with lights playing across the landscape. They had a bottomless backpack that carried an inexhaustible supply of dynamite, which they used with abandon. We could recall about sixty bundles of dynamite used throughout the movie (and we weren’t keeping count). The book, I’m glad to say, didn’t turn the plot into a “let’s blow shit up!” fest.
There were more painfully bad mistakes, errors and whathaveyou that should have resulted in the infiltration team, and most especially the heroes, all being stood against a wall at dawn, after a last cigarette.
The end result was a plot that sucked from all the logic holes and oopses in it.
They even managed to completely destroy all suspense and mystery and about three major story twists in the principal scene. Reading the book, your neck gets sore from all the snapping backwards and forwards that happens around that scene. In the movie, they killed all of that by one stupid line uttered by Richard Burton (that wasn’t in the book). So the scene became a showcase for Burton, with little suspense left in it.
And honestly, Burton wasn’t worth watching. By 1968, the booze had a tight grip on him. Clint Eastwood has been quoted as saying that the movie should have been called “Where Doubles Dare” because whenever they could get away with it, the director and crew substituted doubles for Richard Burton, because he was usually too drunk to complete the scene.
All this lethal tinkering with the plot and dialogue and yet the movie was still a massive hit.
I have to wonder if the movie-going audience were less rigorous in their demand for verisimilitude. As long as the movie was entertaining, what did it matter if plot holes abound? Or did they genuinely not notice the flaws?
Have we, the modern audience, become so adept at consuming stories, that we see everything the 1960s audiences did not?
Again, it’s not the pacing that bothered me the most, because we’re all used to how slow story telling was, back only a few decades. I can sit still for a 1960s movie, if the story hangs together properly.
So my attempt to save Mark hours of reading time failed spectacularly. But it was an eye-opening experiment, all the same. I learned a lot about story structure, story-telling and how not to treat the audience/reader as if they’re stupid.
Have you ever gone back and watched or read a classic, older story, and been appalled by what readers/viewers put up with, back then?
Worse, have you consumed a story created in this century, that made you feel you were being patted on the head?
Tell me about it.
It’s the Monthly SRP 20% Off Everything Sale
And it’s that time again for the Monthly SRP 20% Off Everything Sale. Have you been stashing stuff in your shopping basket all month, waiting for this? You’re not alone.
If you’re new to the SRP monthly sale, here’s the gist:
Anything and everything available for sale on SRP and can be added to the basket, is eligible. This includes boxed sets, whole series, books that are already on sale, and pre-orders. It’s all good.The coupon will only work on the SRP site.The coupon is active right now, and expires at midnight on October 2nd, MDT.You can use the coupon as many times as you wish before it expires.You can pass the coupon on to friends and other book lovers, who can also use it as often as they like before the expiry date.The coupon code is Y67GAEQR.
Paste the code into the Coupon box when you checkout.
To start your browsing, click here: https://storiesrulepress.com/shop/
And enjoy!
Tracy
