L.M. Preston's Blog, page 48

Places you can find my books this month

Just because I've been on vacation, my books haven't. My in person tours have slowed until the Baltimore Bookfest (which is one of my favorite events).

But you can check out my babies in the blogsphere:

Writerly Wednesday invited BANDITS to drop in.

The Frugal eReader gave away copies of The Pack

Book Blogs has Ad for The Pack

FrugalFinds is doing a giveaway of The Pack

So check out some of the places my babies are hanging out - you just may be able to win one for free.

Here's some fun depictions of my characters from The Pack and Bandits:



LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers

Amazon Blub:

Luc Cain was born and raised in Hell, but he isn't feeling as demonic as usual lately... thanks to Frannie Cavanaugh and the unique power she never realized she had. But you can't desert Hell without consequences, and suddenly Frannie and Luc find themselves targeted by the same demons who used to be Luc's allies.

Left with few options, Frannie and Luc accept the protection of Heaven and one of its most powerful angels, Gabe. Unfortunately, Luc isn't the only one affected by Frannie, and it isn't long before Gabe realizes that being around her is too tempting. Rather than risk losing his wings, he leaves Frannie and Luc under the protection of her recently-acquired guardian angel. Which would be fine, but Gabe is barely out the door before an assortment of demons appears - and theyre not leaving without dragging Luc back to Hell with them.

Hell won't give up and Heaven won't give in. Frannie's guardian exercises all the power he has to keep them away, but the demons are willing to hurt anyone close to Frannie in order to get what they want. It will take everything she has and then some to stay out of Hell's grasp. And not everyone will get out of it alive.

NYIA's Teen Reviewer's Opinion:

I can't wait to tell you how much I loved this book! I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5. The book is exciting, drama filled, and has a nice romantic touch to the whole story. The main character Frannie and Luc make the most adorable couple. Their romance is a play off of the bad boy turned good by the girl. Luc is an ex-demon, so now he lives a human life like Frannie. Frannie has a guardian angel named Matt who used to be her brother. Between these three drama unfolds as they fight temptation so that they can stay protected from the other demons who are trying to get to Frannie. I love how Luc really is concerned for Frannie and they both seem to really love each other. The real twist is that Gabe comes in again to steal the girl. Overall this book has fighting and romance...What more could you want? The only thing I didn't like is that sometimes things got a little corny, but that didn't happen that much. The ending was very exciting and hope there is another book.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

Transformers Dark of The Moon

Fandango Blurb:

Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) taking his first tenuous steps into adulthood while remaining a reluctant human ally of Optimus Prime. The film centers around the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet's most dangerous secrets. The villain of the third film will be Shockwave.

My Review:

I really wasn't expecting much out of this movie. Why? I mean because how many times can they get it right? But you know what...they nailed it - again! They actually spent a little time building up enough story to get you to like Sam again. But there were some parts that looked thrown together and yet again - totally unbelievable, but hey, this is a movie you go to for fun and action (it wasn't quite as funny this time though). So if you don't want to spend time at the beach, the park or the pool. And you want some action and great special 3D effects, check this one out. I give it 4 out of 5 cubes.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

Where I got my world building ideas for Bandits

I've been in Hawaii for 2 weeks. A revisiting of the place I first got the idea for the world I would build for Bandits. Of course I morphed it up a bit, but I gotta tell you Hawaii is right here on Earth and is....in a word, amazing!

SOMETHINGS I HAD TO SEE TO BELIEVE

The green sand beach. See the picture above. That is it and I actually four wheel drove there with my husband, oldest son and friends.

The black sand beaches. I had a huge turtle walk up right next to me on this beach. The water was clear and warm.

Cliff diving - my son and his friend actually did this and it was just the most awesome thing I've ever seen.

Waipio Valley, is just like being in paradise. Waterfalls, black sand beach, plush surroundings that smell like sweet flowers. A horse actually came up to our car, looked at us then veered into the brush.

The Road to Hana, the most beautiful drive (besides the one we took to the Florida Keys) that revealed more beauty than is imaginable with each curve. This was the most curvy road I've ever in my life traveled.

Volcano National Park, when we came here 3 years ago we were actually able to see Lava flow - do you believe that! It was ...like wow! and if you read Bandits, you'll know that's where I morphed Daniel's family trove from.

Mauna Loa, the observatory where the telescopes stand above the clouds was another beautiful tidbit I used in my world building. Although not in this version of Bandits, stay tuned for more.

WHAT THINGS HAVE YOU SEEN THAT HAVE BEEN USED IN YOUR WORLD BUILDING or DAY DREAMING?

LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

DREAM LIFE by Lauren Mechling

NYIA - Our Teen Book Reviewer is here to talk about the latest read in her library.



Book Blurb-Amazon:

Picking up where Dream Girl (2008) left off, Claire is learning to command her ability to see into the future through her dreams. In addition to figuring out how to decipher her psychic gift, Claire is secretly dating her best friend Becca's brother. Turns out that Becca belongs to a secret society of do-good teen philanthropists whose mission is to spruce up the city anonymously—but someone is out to expose the group, and it's up to Claire to thwart the plot. Teen girls looking for a light read with elements of mystery, adventure, romance, and life in high society will appreciate this satisfying stand-alone sequel.


NYIA's Teen Review:

Just so you know, I haven't read book 1 in this series, but I didn't feel like I missed anything from book 1 by reading Dream Life, the second book in this series.

It was an interesting mystery book and involved a lot of unsolved problems, but at times the book could get rather slow as the story is woven. There were long amounts of time where it seemed like nothing happens, but the information gathered during that reading time is important. The mystery could have been more of a gotcha, but it was okay. In the end Claire didn't even stay in the "secret" club that was helping the community and decided to go her own way apart from her friend. The Blue Moon had this enemy club called the Elle House, but those girls didn't even seem to do anything. Basically the mystery and dreams didn't seem to give a lot of struggle or make it seem like all hope was lost especially since Claire's grandma just seemed to always give the answers to everything Claire was challenged with. It's an easy read if you like mysteries. I did like the overall plot and thought it could have been played out better. The side romance with Claire and Becca's, brother was adorable and I liked that the author didn't keep it as a "side" romance not making it the main focus. Overall this book was nice and if you want a little bit of teen drama while liking mysteries then this is your book. I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

Nothing is Ever Forgotten on the WWW

As an engineer who has built large applications and databases, I sometimes laugh at the naïveté of travelers on the world 'wild' web. It's not a safe place out there. Every site or 'street' you turn down has the ability to haunt you for life.

YOU CAN'T RUN FROM YOUR PAST

With all of the advances of socializing, writing, chatting and traveling on the web there is the temptation to drop your manners and be wild. Well remember, ANYTHING you put out there on the World 'Wild' Web – NEVER EVER gets destroyed.

That means that twenty years after you blasted out your parents, took naked pictures for your boyfriend, cursed out your boss on a rant site – it can be found.

When you delete content from a site, it does not get deleted from the many replicated data sites that google and other search engines or crawlers have. That means that meta-data or subset of information about whatever you posted is held or copied in the many different search engine databases.

For example: Let's say you uploaded a picture on photobucket. You named that picture um 'naughty name' then after about a year, you delete it from your photobucket website. Now if anyone searched for that item in a year, and the search engine grabbed it – the picture and description may have been copied and saved. So years later when you put in a search – you have an 80% chance that it will pop back up.

WATCH OUT FOR PREDATORS

I know, I know…you've heard this before. Well I am here to tell you that predators are still out there. So set up your social networking accounts with proper privacy settings, and check those private settings continuously. Also, DON'T ever post your personal information (even though someone can plop in your name and find out anything they want about you on peoplesearch – scary thought huh?)

REMEMBER – YOU HAVE A FUTURE

When you are surfing the web, speaking your opinion, or having a wild time at Spring Break – remember you have a future. If something questionable is placed on the web about you – your prospective employer, spouse – even kid may see it. So just for grins and giggles – search yourself on the web. You may be surprised at what you find.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

Dress like a star of get served?

Having teenagers in the house is fun. It makes me realize that not much has changed since I was a kid. Some things are more out in the open, but we all know that history repeats itself. Unfortunately, when it repeats – it's usually worse the second time around.

Designer Only

When I was in High School, if you didn't wear designer jeans, shoes or clothes – you were definitely not in the 'in' crowd. Usually, your day would start off with an inspection of your clothes by your peers and if you didn't have on the right digs you were teased all day. Matter of fact, every day you'd pay for that one infraction of dressing different from the crowd.

Today is no different. My son insists that his tennis shoes be designer. That means I'm paying about $100 plus per pair. I have four kids and just can't afford it. So, what's a mom to do? Well, I go to the flea market where they sell new shoes but at a price I can haggle over. It saves me about $30 or so bucks to purchase them this way, but it allows me to buy him those designer jeans, t-shirts and hats he desires. Now my kid is no slouch, he works and saves his money for these coveted items. His insatiable desire to look cool didn't hit him until High School, but in the inner city where I grew up – babies wore designer wear. Huh? Yep, you heard me, in certain communities people will spend their money on designer clothes for their kid and not even have a car of their own.

Cool Cars Only

The other thing required by a cool teen, seems to be a nice car. Now that doesn't mean it has to be new or even a sports car. It means it has to have a decent paint job and be comfortable for friends to ride in. However, when I grew up – if you had a dang car you were cool. Considering I spent tons of my travel time on buses and metro trains.

My first car was a bright yellow, Chevette. You couldn't tell me nothing about my baby. I got it when I was 17yr old. I'd saved $400 and paid half of the sticker price towards it. My mom came up with the other half.

Now my kid wants a newer car. Well, I'm mom and want to get him everything he desires, but for a bargain. So I'm going to the car auctions to pick him up a stick shift (my evil plan is that he won't be able to talk on the cell phone or text if he has to shift gears to drive).

Dangers

Many of times while I was growing up, I realized that kid's that desired these expensive totem's of coolness were forced to steal, barter, borrow or work in order to get these things that helped them to fit in. My cousin had even gotten beat up over his shoes. Hopefully, in time being cool will mean being different. Creating your own style and setting trends. Unfortunately though, history just has a way of repeating.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

AUTHOR CONFESSIONS – THE EVIL THINGS WE DO

AUTHOR CONFESSIONS – THE EVIL THINGS WE DO

I'm hosting YALITCHAT tonight (use twitter hashtag #yalitchat Wed, 9pm 6/23) to follow. I'll be hosting Author Confessions where we all confess to the evil things we've done to our main characters.

WHY WE ARE SO MEAN TO OUR MC's

Let's face it, growth is painful. Very painful. In order to develop and grow our characters through the readers eyes – we must create trails, tribulations and odd situations for them. Those situations should be realistically displayed and work within the story but should be used to show either strength, growth, reaction, thoughts, or set ups that build the relationship with the character and the reader.

Also, we authors create these situations because it's just darn fun :-D Oops! Did I say that?

MY CONFESSIONS

Well, if you can't make it tonight to the chat, you may as well here the truth from me personally.

Here's my confessions:

EXPLORER X – ALPHA (Middle Grade Series) – I confess to genetically altering my Aadi (my MC), making his parents betray him by keeping an awful secret, cutting him, enslaving him, blackmailing him, altering his body, kidnapping his crush, capturing him in war…to name just a few.

THE PACK – (Upper YA) – I confess to making Shamira (my MC) blind, kidnapping her brother, shooting her, stabbing her, beating her up, trying to blow her up with landmines…sigh, I'm so bad.

BANDITS – (Upper YA) – I confess to murdering Daniel's father (my MC) trying to eat him, burning him, breaking his fingers, sucking the blood out of his brother and girlfriend, kidnapping his family, trying to burn him in a boiling sea…and I haven't even really gotten started with all the naughty things I've done to him.
Truly I would be sorry if doing these things didn't create my flawed, a bit on the angry side characters and turn them into heros – but it was just too darned fun!

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR CHARACTERS?LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

The Green Lantern - Movie Review

Blurb from Fandango:

A test pilot embraces his destiny as a cosmic superhero in Casino Ropyale director Martin Campbell's adaptation of the popular DC Comics series. Ever since he saw his fearless father perish in a tragic aviation mishap, all Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) could think about was flying -- it was the only thing the brash, cocky, and irresponsible test pilot ever truly excelled at. Little did he realize he was destined for something much bigger. Somewhere out in space, a powerful force of evil known as Parallax is spreading fear and destruction; the only hope for defeating Parallax is the Green Lantern Corps, a group of intergalactic warriors powered by the force of will. When legendary Green Lantern Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) is sent hurtling toward planet Earth after a deadly encounter with Parallax, his ring chooses Hal to continue the fight. The ring spirits our hero away to the Green Lantern's home planet of Oa for training. The first human ever to receive the honor of becoming a Green Lantern, Hal is viewed with scorn by the league's leader, Sinestro (Mark Strong), who trains him alongside the hulking Kilowog (voice of Michael Clarke Duncan). Later, on planet Earth, frail scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) becomes infected with Parallax's evil while performing an autopsy on Abin Sur, and uses his newfound powers to stake claim on Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), Hal's lifelong friend and fellow test pilot. When Hal learns that Parallax plans to consume all life on Earth to gain the energy needed to conquer Oa, he begins looking inward for the courage to defeat the malevolent force and embrace his destiny as a super-powered peacekeeper. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi


THE TRAILER:




MY Review:

I will forewarn you - I'm partial to the color Green. It's my favorite color - always has been. Now, I am also partial to super heroes and especially Marvel Super Heroes. But I have to say, this movie impressed me. Why? Well it had to do with the main character Hal. He was irresponsible, most unlikely to be a hero but he became one - so much so, that I even teared up at his final hero moment. Now don't go to the movie thinking this is a deeply moving film that is all the rave, but it is enjoyable. The only problem I had was it seemed a bit too short. The villains include three people - some who are obvious, another that just kinda appears, but one that I really didn't expect (excuse me here but I must be honest - I didn't read the comics I only watched the cartoons). This movie in my book gets a 3.5 lantern. The positives was action, fun characters, a flawed hero, a sad villain, an unrealized villain (you have to stay til after the credits role to reveal this one) and a blush love affair.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS

How Phenomenal One Press Got Started

The owner of my small press is my husband. He'd been in sales like – forever, even got a degree in Marketing. When I started my writing endeavor, got my first contract from a small press, he figured, we could do a better job at it. You know what – we did.

Here's how we did it.

START YOUR OWN SMALL PRESS – Don't just self pub

Phenomenal One Press was started with the full intention of building up a list of authors besides just moi' (which we do, F. Raushawn who is our teen author of SPECTRUM - a free read you can find on our webpage www.phenomenalonepress.com check it out). But in order to do that correctly, we had to do research. Remember, every publishers business model is different, if you decide to go this road, sit down and think about what you want to accomplish and how.

We gained an LLC, registered our business name, put up a website, decided what amount of work we wanted to do, and what we were willing to pay someone else to do.

Created a business plan, a marketing plan and a Book marketing plan.

Set realistic goals – it usually takes any business at least 3 years to see true success and maintainability – and starting a small press is starting such a business.

Released 2 books the first year a middle grade and an upper ya book. Create media kit, marketing packet.

Started promoting books 6 to 8 months before release (that meant getting covers made prior to finalized editing).

OUR STAFF

We recruited college interns that wanted to learn the business. Built contracts with an events coordinator (and one day will get a publicist), two editors (one for full edits and another for proof-reading prior to sending to print), gained a printer, a distributor (to distributes to the big guys and requires very little work for us initially), artist and everything else we either do ourselves or contract as needed.

GARNER SUPPORT and KNOWLEDGE

We joined IBPA which was a wealth of information and Mid Atlantic Book Publishers Association. Also, we started to network with other small pubs who were extremely supportive and helpful.

OUR PRINTING, SALES, MARKETING Goals

We decided that for us, we wanted to do a little less of the initial leg work and did a digital print run of 2K books for ARCs and market test. The goal was to sell 1,500 and give away 500 before the book actually printed (realize that large publishers print 10K or more and giveaway a larger % of their books than a small pub can afford to). It was successful most of the time by setting up blog tours, soft ads on active blogs, and word of mouth. Also, ebook release a bit early helped to get buzz started for the print. Once the initial print run is sold out – we print with multiple print on demand providers (because we own our ISBNs) that offer returns for booksellers.

LESSONS LEARNED

When marketing your book make a budget, realize that you don't have to do it all in one day – so pace yourself. It's your product and you have a long time to sell it, but take the time to build the right marketing profile for the specific piece of work you are selling. Also, it's more profitable and less stressful if you promote the same genre/age group for the first few years before branching out. Always be professional and seek ways to improve your business model. Give your business time to see its potential.

SOME THINGS THAT MATTER

Pricing – if you can't be competitive in your pricing, don't even bother. Cover – compare your cover with others and see if it meets the muster (they are your first marketing tool). Editing – don't you dare skimp on this – not one bit, try to get at least one professional editor and one proofreader. Ebooks – a must do for small pubbers since it offers a way to get book out there with as little of cost as possible. Marketing – must be consistent and takes about 3-6 months to be realized. Timing – DON'T RUSH!!!! Take your time, build your buzz, make your product shine – remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.LM Preston (www.lmpreston.com) , author of THE PACK, EXPLORER X-Alpha and BANDITS