Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 54
July 2, 2012
A New Round of Goals
For a year now, I’ve been participating in A Round of Words in 80 Days, and it’s been amazing. I’ve published half-a-dozen ebooks, sold several stories to traditional markets, and made enough money off my writing (after a big dip in writing fortunes last year), to once again dream that I might yet be able to make it as a full-time writer. One of the sticky note on my monitor is a wonderfully practical quote from James Lee Burke to keep me grounded: “One of the things an author can always rely...
June 30, 2012
Could group promos be the wave of the future for indies?
As folks who occasionally stop by this blog may have noticed, I participated in a group promo for fantasy ebooks last week, Summer Solstice Free Fantasy. 23 authors who hang out on the Kindle Boards got together and offered a total of 29 books for free on June 20-21.
Chris Tarwater, husband and promotions manager for his wife Tristan Tarwater, had the idea for the promo and did most of the organization, including putting together the site and having a banner made. For those of us interested i...
June 21, 2012
Interview with Indie Author J. R. Tomlin
In honor of Summer Solstice Free Fantasy, I have an interview today with author J.R. Tomlin, writer of fantasy and historical fiction.
What is it about historical fiction and fantasy that makes you write in those genres?
I suppose the main reason is that I read them. I love both genres. I started reading historical fiction very early, by the time I was ten years old I was plowing through The Three Muskateers and then writers like Nigel Tranter. Later, like a lot of people, I fell in love with...
June 20, 2012
Going indie and writing morale
I’ve been at this writing business for a long time now — and if you count all the years I was writing without any success getting published even longer. I sold my first short story to Asimov’s in 2000, and it came out 2001. And that, of course, was far from the first work of fiction I wrote. I think I definitely put in my proverbial 1,000,000 word apprenticeship.
Despite the fact that a big part of my self-definition is that I’m a writer, some developments in the last couple of years were mak...
June 14, 2012
Great review of Shadow of Stone!
Just a short note: Shadow of Stone (The Pendragon Chronicles) got its first review today, and a very enthusiastic one it is. 
You can read it here.
Given that wonderful endorsement, I would like to remind you that Shadow of Stone is free today for the Kindle!
Those of you who subscribe to Daily Science Fiction, the story in your mailbox today is my flash piece, “The Magician of Words.” I hope you enjoy it!
June 13, 2012
Summer Solstice Free Fantasy (and various other updates)
As you can see from the badge off to the right there, I will be participating in a group giveaway next week, Summer Solstice Free Fantasy, with 28 fantasy novels for folks to chose from! Please pass the word along. In addition, I will also be having a single free day for Shadow of Stone tomorrow, to try to get things moving a bit. As a result, however, in the last couple of days I’ve been spending more time on marketing again, announcing the freebies with all the usual suspects.
In anticipat...
June 10, 2012
To Deadline or not to Deadline, That is the Question
This past week, I managed to finally make Shadow of Stone available as an ebook, several weeks after I had originally intended. But that’s ok. I had some self-imposed deadlines for formatting and editing, but then once I had addressed the changes suggested by the copy editor, I decided to give the novel another complete editing pass. And I did catch a couple more mistakes, so the novel is better for the extra work I put into it. Seeing as I am an indie author now, I might as well take advanta...
June 6, 2012
Shadow of Stone is now live on Amazon!
After months and years of hard work and sweat and tears and all that stuff, Shadow of Stone is now available on Amazon!
It is the second book in the Pendragon Chronicles after Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur. But never fear, both books are standalone novels. Depending on how Yseult and Shadow of Stone do sales-wise, I may write another book in the series, probably the story of Yseult’s son Kustennin. But for now, I want to get back to Chameleon in a Mirror and finish that.
He...
June 5, 2012
Shadow of Stone is done! And Looking Through Lace is #4!
Just a short note, since Shadow of Stone isn’t actually available yet (I only published it an hour or so ago). But I’m so relieved that I finally got Shadow of Stone uploaded to Amazon that I just had to share! Of course, I created several silly glitches during the formatting and conversion process, but I really hope I caught them all and fixed them before the upload.
I have just persuaded my DH to put aside the work for a little bit and go out to the beer garden with me to celebrate. The wea...
June 4, 2012
Three free ebooks and “The Magician of Words”
The free ebook promotion I have going right now has been getting some nice attention from other blog sites. The latest is a listing on Free Kindle Books and Tips for Looking Through Lace. Yesterday, all three freebies (Looking Through Lace, Dragon Time and Other Stories, and The Future, Imperfect) were listed on SF Signal and Upcoming4.Me. Here’s hoping that will up my numbers enough to help Shadow of Stone when I publish it!
I also learned the publication date for my flash fiction piece “The...
