Hayley Rae Johnson's Blog, page 4

Goodreads Giveaway!

Here it is…short and sweet…

Giveaway opens July 2nd! You must enter through Goodreads.

Goodreads Book Giveaway Blood of the Raej by Hayley Rae Johnson

Giveaway ends July 14, 2021.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Who do you know that would LOVE a free book?

Let's show some LOVE!

My amazing cover artist was able to bring my vision to this cover. She is a newly wed of just a few years, has an 18 month old baby girl (whom I love SO much) and has a one week old son! I am so proud of all her hard work and I am looking forward to us growing together in our artistic journeys.

They say not to judge a book by its cover but I need you to do just that. If you liked the cover of my book, Blood of the Raej, please vote for it for the Cover of the Month contest on AllAuthor.com!

I’m getting closer to clinch the "Cover of the Month" contest on AllAuthor! I’d need as much support from you guys. Please take a short moment to vote for my book cover here: Click to Vote!

Whirlwind

Whew - it’s been a whirlwind! I thought things would slow down after the book launch, but there has been so much to do. Even though my book was with a professional editor, twice over 6 weeks, there were still errors that both of us had missed and I’ve had people tell me about. Unfortunately, I’ve had to go back to the original manuscript and correct these small errors. On the upside, I am a human being, as is my editor, and mistakes happen. I hope my readers are able to understand a typo every 10,000 or 20,000 words - autocorrect does some weird things.

Anyways, I haven’t forgotten about you! I am still going to be doing a weekly newlsetter with flash fiction and updates. I have not yet started writing Book Two, but I’ve been working on the loose outline. Don’t let that worry you, I’m a full-blooded pantser! Though I love strategy, risk management, assessments, evaluations and benchmarks, when it comes to writing I am not a plotter. You cannot imagine the things that I changed in this Book One! For example, I never planned on killing one of those character (baby spoiler) until it happened. I blame the character that did it.

There are multiple moving parts around my book right now. One HUGE thing I am looking at is the 2021 Book of the Year at OnlineBookclub.org. If you haven’t yet read the book, please please please grab an ebook (or paper/hardcover/signed what-have-you), read it, rate it on Amazon and VOTE HERE!

Of course, please be authentic and honest with your ratings/reviews and only vote if you like the book. It is voted by genre and right now, I am #54 in Fantasy!

I’ll be submitting a short story to a competition every week. Some of these will be appearing in the newsletter, so don’t forget to sign up! I will, also, be trying out Kindle Vella. As a treat for signing up for the newsletter, you will be getting those for FREE.

Lastly…I know I left the book on a huge cliffhanger - “about as abrupt a cliff-hanger as I have ever seen” said one reviewer - so, I may leave some breadcrumbs or interesting passages in the newsletters as well.

I already have my writing prompt for next week’s short story competition, so if nothing else, you’ll receive a fun newsletter soon!

Blood of the Ràej is here!

Hello everyone!
I am a new author and new to Good reads. Already, I am loving this reading/writing community.

My new book is book one of the series (second launching in December). It is FREE through today, so go check it out on Amazon. I am sending autographed books to those who like have the special, first editions as well.

If you like fantasy, please check this out! Romantic high fantasy - it's fun and adventurous with some twists, turns and a NEW type of magic.

Let me know what you think!

Blood of the Raej
www.hayleyraejohnson.com

Blown away

Today is book launch day! Yes, the Blood of the Ràej is available for purchase as paperback, hardcover and e-book.
hint: the ebook will be free Monday-Friday only!

I’m having a book launch celebration today. I had big dreams of it being perfect: stacks of books to sign, catered food on silver trays carried by waiters dressed in black and white, people lining up to see what the fuss was all about, and a news team coming to tell me I became a success story over night. Just joking! But, I did want to have enough books for my friends that were coming. This, sadly, won’t happen due to printing errors and shipping delays. Needless to say, I’m a bit frustrated that my book launch party will look like any other party.

Not that frustrated though! I’m absolutely blown away by the amount of people that are coming to support me ❤️ Friends that I have collected since the young age of 3! Some people call it your tribe, your gang, your community, or what have you, but I call it family.

I do wish my dad were here to see that I finally did it. He would say I never doubted you for a second. I can see it now. It’s a 90 degree day and he’d be wearing his red and black, heavy duty flannel with jeans, maybe stained with oil from work, and a decade-old baseball cap. He would give me a big hug, kiss the side of my forehead and say I’m proud of you P-Nutty. Then, he’d give me a noogie, making me say Dad! You’re messing up my hair! He’d laugh, I’d scowl, then we’d both go find someone new to talk to ❤️

It’s time to get ready! Follow me on Instagram to see the book launch party ✨

Pulling My Hair Out

I received the final copy of my manuscript back from my editor on Friday, May 21st. Unfortunately, I had just returned, a couple days prior, from Las Vegas with some sort of bug. Don’t worry, it was not COVID - I was fully vaccinated before I risked a plane. It was something that made me fill malaise through Saturday. Long story short, I didn’t start my final round of finishing touches until Sunday and it took me ten straight hours - WHEW!

But, guess what? It’s done! The manuscript has given my every type of technological problem you can imagine as I tried to upload it correctly. I have never had so many issues with software, drives, docs, margins, gutters, embedded fonts…the list goes on.

When I mentioned pulling my hair out, the hours it took me to get my manuscript from my computer to the publishers, is what I was referring to. I’m just glad that it will be ready for you to purchase, hold and read soon.

SNEAK PEEK! If you sign up for my Newsletter, then you will be getting the first couple chapters for FREE!

Flash Fiction, short stories or a running series?

As I’m compiling my newsletter mailing list, I’ve been running through what I want to put in the newsletters. Two of my biggest pet peeves are lack of efficiency and lack of efficacy. In any job that I have, I am constantly trying to improve efficiency by spotting the bottle necks, finding the duplicate processes and searching for ways to decrease lag time. There are a few reasons I chose Organizational Leadership and Development for my PhD program, and one of them may be my obsession with work flow and streamlined efficiency.

How does this relate to my newsletter? I don’t want to be wasting your time, or my time. Of course, I will keep you up-to-date with any writing projects I am doing, especially launches for the Blood of the Ráej series, but my favorite newsletters are ones that give me free information or free entertainment. I am not a scientist right now, so I don’t think I am the most qualified person to give you free information. I can provide you free stories though. These could be excerpts from a published Blood of the Ráej book, short chapters to be published on Kindle Novella or a flash fiction that I just happen to write that day.

Now, what would you like best? Yes, Blood of the Ráej is a high fantasy, but I write almost all fiction. Please comment below (or send me your request in the Contact tab) with your favorite genre and if you’d prefer flash fiction or a running series in the newsletter.

One More Month!

There is just one month until my new book is released!

I’m completing the second round of edits today, then sending it back to my editor. I was up until 11 pm, last night, working on my edits, and it was great! Sure, I was a little tired, but I didn’t want to stop. There were parts of the story that I wanted to jump in and expand, make a short story or novella out of. Going back through my book made me excited to start writing Book 2!

You know the current timeline; June 6th is the launch date for the first book of the Blood of the Ráej series. The next date on that timeline is, fingers crossed, is sometime in December.

Come follow my Instagram for fun news and sign up for the Newsletter!

The good, the bad...

The last few days have been a whirlwind of the good, the bad and the beautiful.

Saturday, I attended the Northern Colorado Writer’s Conference. I met some great people and I saw some amazing presentations. It made me wonder why I hadn’t started doing this years ago! Have you ever heard the saying “if you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room”? I am not saying this to toot my horn about being that smart about anything, but I was in the right room this weekend.

Everything I heard someone say was instantly tucked away in my mind and I would jot down notes about it as soon as I reached my notebook. I couldn’t wait to implement tools that I had learned about. The community I joined had welcomed me with open arms and I felt a kinship with several of them!

Sunday, was my 31st birthday. Every plan was changed, but it all turned out for the best and I could not have enjoyed myself more. After our golf time fell through, which I had been given a brand new Odyssey putter by my boyfriend to try for the first time that day, we had a surprise visit from family! I’d pick family over golf any day - so this was great!

Monday was hard. It was more difficult than I had expected it to be. I attended my friend’s open-casket funeral. This was the first service like this I had ever been to and it was someone that had grown close to my boyfriend and me over the past year. I’m already an emotional person, so you can imagine my slight outburst when I reached the coffin at the front of the church. I picked a pew in the back of the church, pulled out the kneeler, then crossed myself and prayed. My friend wasn’t coming back, I knew that. None of us would see that dazzling smile or hear his laughter. He was as big as any room he was in, and I knew we would all miss that presence.

I prayed for his family; for them to have strength and the courage to keep his memory alive and close. I prayed myself; to have courage to walk back down the aisle, in front of his family, and pay my respects. I prayed for all of us to feel his presence one last time, to feel that love, and to accept he is in peace.

You can find beauty in everything. My last few days were packed full and my brain was spinning a few times. For the remainder of the week, my first week of being 31, I am going to find my own peace, and a little relaxation. This may sound weird, but I will be relaxing by spending every free moment completing the edits for my book.

Welcome to my author website!

It has taken me a very long time to get to this point, but I am no less excited now than I was when I wrote my first book at the young age of 8. Of course, that was nothing near publish-worthy. My friend and I wrote it together, sitting outside of our third grade class after we had finished the assignment for the day.

I have written thousands and thousands of pages, but there are few things that I put in front of other people. The year 2020 brought hardship to many, as it brought opportunity. I found my flow for this idea I’ve been playing with for 15 years! Between May and November 30th, I wrote the novel that I am bringing before you. There are many steps that I have had to take and they seem to be endless at times!

The official launch date is June 6th, 2021. Unless something crazy happens, which tends to happen around me, you will be able to buy a copy of Blood of the Ràej as an e-book on Amazon or Smashwords or as print from most of the larger book retailers (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc). If you are wanting to pre-order an e-book, you can do that RIGHT HERE!

Between now and June 6th, I will be attending a writer’s conference where I will be meeting some other amazing authors, talking to agent and publishers, completing my final edits for the first book and turning 31!

Stay tuned and don’t forget to sign up for the Newsletter!