Christine Rains's Blog, page 114

Teaser Tuesday with Pegasus

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that pageBE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!I love Robin McKinley's books. It's been a while since I've ready any of hers, or any fantasy (outside of urban fantasy!). I'm loving it so far. Sylvii and Ebon are spectacular characters. Of course, McKinley writes beautifully and has created a magnificent world to explore.
Here's your teaser:
(Sylvii asks a magician if he minds being short)
"I am a magician, not a princess. A pony costs less to keep than a horse, which means I can buy more books." (page 94)

Release Round-up

Thank you so much to everyone who helped make my release week a success. You guys are awesome!

Here's some things I learned while promoting FEARLESS.

1) Blogs are the most powerful tools for promoting. Arrange a blog tour. Even just a shout-out from a blogger friend makes a big difference. I got a lot of positive comments from my interviews and guest posts. Also, the blogfest was a huge success. I never imagined the response I received. It was simple and fun. Something everyone could participate in. It linked to a theme in my book: monsters! That's attention grabbing in itself.

Speaking of the power of blogs, I have 360 followers. Welcome to all my new friends! I follow back if you provide a link.

2) Twitter was my second most powerful social media tool. I tweeted about my book and the blogfest a lot, but not so much it became spam. Friends retweeted my tweets. Thousands of people might have seen my blurbs for FEARLESS. I have over 600 followers on Twitter now. I'll still continue to promote my book on there at least once a day.

3) People like free things. If your book isn't free, have a couple of giveaways. FEARLESS is free on Smashwords. Here's how many copies I've sold on each site:
Smashwords - 476Kobo - 0Amazon Kindle -10B&N - 0CreateSpace (print) -  4
The figures very clearly speak for themselves. I'd love to see it price-matched on Amazon and see what it does to sales on there. Please, if you've a minute, copy the Smashwords link and paste it into the price-matching tool on the FEARLESS Amazon page where you see the link under Product Details. I'd greatly appreciate it.
4) FEARLESS on Smashwords is doing wonderfully. I found the site easy to use, and if you don't want to load your book up to any of the other sites, Smashwords eventually does it for you unless you opt out. I don't know if I would have seen that number if I charged for the book, but it's a fantastic way of getting myself out there and hooking readers in.

What I've heard is that sales should rise if you continue to promote and get more reviews. Also, sales will rise if you have more books out there for people to buy. Right now, series are very popular. They do help sell your books.
5) I sent FEARLESS to a bunch of review sites. I haven't gotten a review yet. I know they're very busy, and so if they do happen to do a review, it might take a while. If you are brave enough to get your book reviewed, send a copy to sites like Bitten By Books or Smexy Books a good couple of months before your release. Some of them do not take self-published books. Make sure to read their submission requirements before you send anything.
I hope what I've learned can help you too. If you have any tips, please comment and share them with us.

Dog Days of Summer Blog Fest

Mmm, hotdogs. What a great name for this blogfest. Hotdogs always remind me of summer.

A big thank you to Jeremy Bates for hosting The Dog Days of Summer blogfest. This is a great way to meet some new friends and to find out what everyone's been doing this summer.

The rules are simple. Write a post about one or all three topics below:
1) Describe your favorite summer activity thus far.
2) What activities do you have planned before summer is over?
3) If you could have the ultimate vacation ever, where and what would it be?

My favorite summer activity so far is getting our new air-conditioning unit installed. Yes, we went a month without it. It was horrible. Several times I thought I died. I'm not a hot weather person.

Okay, okay. My real favorite summer activity has been going to the lake for a swim and a picnic. My son loves the water. Just watching him play is a joy.
 
We don't have any other summer plans. In ten days, my son will be starting preschool. A BIG event, but to me, it feels more like an autumn event. Yet if the weather gives us more opportunities, we'll take a drive to the lake and have some more fun.
As for the ultimate vacation, ooh, a complete summer-long tour of Europe. No rush to see everything. Just taking our time. See the big attractions and hunt out the gems most tourists don't get to see. I want to browse little bookshops and eat chocolate in every country.
Let us know what you've been doing this summer!

Last day of Fearless release week

Hop on over to Tara Tyler's blog today.Find out how I came up with the idea for Tawa.
Thank you all for your encouragement and support in releasing FEARLESS.You guys rock!
Also, a HUGE thank you to all the participantsin the "What was your childhood monster?" blogfest.It was my first time hosting a blogfest,and because of you, it was a great success!

Next stop on the Fearless tour and last day for the blogfest

Today I'm over at M. Pepper Langlinais' blog.Find out how many stuffed animals I had as a kid!
Today is the last day to post for the"What was your childhood monster?" blogfest.It's been so much fun so far!

What was your childhood monster?

First, a reminder that I'm over at Aubrie Dionne's blog today. We had a fun talk! Please stop by and say hello.

My monster came a little later in my childhood. From a really young age, I've always had a fascination with the supernatural. I was never afraid of ghosts or the dark. I never needed a nightlight. I grew up beside a cemetery and it was my favorite playground. When I was a teenager, I'd sleep with my window wide open - even in the winter - with the hope that a vampire would fly in from the graveyard and bite me!
I had a captain's bed growing up, so there was never room for a monster to hide under it. I never thought about closet monsters until I was ten and picked up Stephen King's Cujo. I've always been mature for my age. This was the first King book I picked up, and he nabbed me within the first few pages.
No, it wasn't the dog that scared me. I actually felt sorry for Cujo. It was the monster in Tad's closet that chilled me to the bone. It wasn't the stereotypical growl and drool I'm-going-to-eat monster. It talked, and it was intelligent. That made it super creepy. To top it off, I was home alone after school when I started to read the book. I was sitting in the living room in the big chair, one of my favorite reading spots. As I read about this monster, the basement door slowly creaked open. Logically, I knew it was probably because I didn't shut it properly when I put in the laundry downstairs. But all I could think about was this monster. A smart and evil beast. Dumb ones I might be able to trick, but this was no ordinary creature. I sat in the chair frozen, unable to move, until my father and brother came home about twenty minutes later.
I couldn't sleep that night. My room was tiny, only six by eight. The foot of my captain's bed was very near the closet. I piled my stuffed animals around me and kept the lamp on all night. I swear I could hear the monster chuckling from behind the closed sliding doors of my closet.
Of course, though the monster was smart, I was a clever kid. The next morning, I removed my closet doors. No closet, no monster. The remedy was as simple as that.
I guess my idea inspired other children in the neighborhood as well. My little brother removed his closet doors that week and so did half a dozen other neighbor kids. Closet doors are good for building forts!
Stephen King remains one of my biggest inspirations.
Don't forget to spread the word about FEARLESS! And Tawa wants to know what was your childhood monster?

FEARLESS is here!

Woo-hoo!It's here! It's here!FEARLESS is now available atAmazonSmashwordsB&N
Kobo
It costs $.99 on Amazon and B&N,
but it's free on Smashwords and Kobo.
If you could please do the
price-matching thing on Amazon,
I'd be very grateful. Spread the word!
Please pop over to Tania Walsh's site today.I've a guest post about monsters.So much fun!
Speaking of monsters,it's the first day of the"What was your childhood monster?" blogfest! I can't wait to read all your posts.I'll be posting my childhood monster tomorrow.

UPDATE:
I finally got everything fixed on CreateSpace.
THIS is the new link.
I'm sorry about the delay.
(Tip for writers publishing their work on CreateSpace: Make sure you get a free CreateSpace ISBN. They will give you a section where you can add your own, and you will likely already have one if you've published the story as an ebook already. CreateSpace wants their own ISBN, but they don't tell you that. Because once you add it in and click that button, you CANNOT change it. And when you get everything approved and accept the proof ready to be sold, you CANNOT delete the project. Customer service didn't help explain the situation either. The only thing you can do at this point is start over by making it a new project. Though the second time I went through it was much much quicker than the first!)

One More Day Until FEARLESS

Tomorrow is the big day!I'm so excited!
Today I'm making two stops on my FEARLESS tour.Please stop by both blogs and say hello!  Shelley Sly is interviewing me over at Stories in the Ordinary.We'll talk about self-publishing and a few other fun things.
I'm also over at Cherie Reich's blogwith a guest post about how to write fear in a believable way. It's tricky!

Saturday Six for August 4th

1. I've been a bit paranoid recently with the scare of bloggers being sued over using other people's pictures on their sites. It's frightening to think that could happen. My new Saturday Six pic is my son's most recent painting. I love the color! My new "anthologies seeking submissions" pic (as seen yesterday) is a photo of my son. My Wicked Wednesday pic has always been my own creation. I've seen other bloggers doing the same thing. Seeing some personal photos has been fun, actually, but not in the mood of the paranoid moment.

2. Our new AC unit is up and running! Woo-hoo! Just in time for one of the hottest nights of the year last night. Is the unit whole? No. The guy still have to put in the kit for the furnace part, but I think we can live without heat for a bit. Heh.

3. I'm excited about the FEARLESS release week next week! Currently, all the sellers seem to have it up and for sale except for CreateSpace. I haven't had time yet to fix what I need to do on there. Hopefully I'll get to it this weekend.

4. Every year in November, I participate in NaNoWriMo. I love it! I plan to do it every year for the rest of my life. This year, though, I've considered using the month to catch up on the writing I missed in July. I'm way behind schedule. Of course, my muse will have none of that talk. A brand new shiny idea hit me hard the other day and came with an amazing first line. It's a superhero story and it made me laugh. If it sticks with me, I think that will be my NaNo story this year and my current project will have to wait that month.

5. Gen Con is coming up in two weeks. Before I had my son, I'd go every year and do a ton of writing seminars. This year, Brandon Sanderson is the author guest of honor. We can't afford to go four days this year, but we'll be going on the Sunday for Family Day. There will be stuff for the boy to do that day, and I can get a chance to visit with some of the writers. I even have new business cards to match my blog's banner.

6. No plans for the weekend except to pick up some groceries and catch up on my networking. Maybe I'll get a minute to write some more of my steampunk short story.

Have a good weekend!

Anthologies seeking submissions - August 2012 edition

I managed to get my short story written for last month. A contemporary flash piece that's unusual for me, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. I submitted another short story to an ezine. So I'm keeping up with my write 1/submit 1 goal for this year.

I'm going to finish up my YA steampunk story for August. It will be at least 5500 words, so I've got a lot to write on it yet. The anthology is still accepting submissions if you're interested.

REAL GIRLS DON'T RUST. YA steampunk. Pugalicious Press. 5500 to 7500 words. Pay $25 at release and then 10% royalty. Deadline: September 1st.

DEAD NORTH - 1-time print/eAntho (Exile Editions); zombies, any genre (fic), set in CA. Pay: CA2¢/word. Words: <10k. RT: 5-6 months. Reprints: yes. E-subs: ONLY . Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Editor . Deadline: September 30th.


INDIANA SCIENCE FICTION - annual print/eAntho (James Ward Kirk Fiction); sf (fic/flash/poem/art). Pay: exposure. Words: fic=1k-5k flash=<1k. RT: <1 week. Reprints: yes. E-subs: ONLY . James Ward Kirk, Editor. Deadline: until filled. 


SAM'S DOT 21st DRABBLE CONTEST - triannual; sf/f/h (fic). Words: 100 exactly. Fee: $0. Prizes: books; pub@1¢/word. Reprints: no. E-subs: ONLY . Contact: Judge: Terrie Leigh Relf . Deadline: August 31st.


ONCE UPON AN APOCALYPSE - 1-time print/eAntho (Chaosium); h (fic). Pay: 3¢/word. Words: 2k-4k. RT: 2-3 months. Reprints: no. E-subs: ONLY . Rachel Kenley & Scott T. Goudsward, Editors . Deadline: September 30th.