Laina Turner's Blog, page 120

Freaky People

I enjoy meeting all kinds of people and am usually tolerant of people who are slightly strange or have weird tendencies. However, I recently met someone who is probably the oddest person I have met in a long time. Weird to the point of uncomfortableness which is a not a usual occurrence for me. I have all kinds of weird friends. You know who you are.

This particular person just didn’t quite understand space and how to communicate on what I would consider a normal level. Very intense would best describe it I guess. This person was taking up so much of my time I had to quickly set boundaries which of course went ignored. It has been quite a learning experience.

Any advice on how to deal with a person who has good intentions but just doesn’t seem to respect personal space?

Laina

Free brings out the haters

[image error]So I posted the other day about how excited I was about making my first Presley Thurman mystery, Stilettos & Scoundrels, free when the 5th, Gems & Gunshots, came out. While I am still thrilled by the good response I have received with people downloading Stilettos & Scoundrels and my other books I also realize there are other things that come in to play when that many people download your book. The main one I am focusing on with this blog post is poor reviews. I’m not delusional and I know that I am not the best writer out there. I also know I’m not a good editor. For that reason all of my books, except one, has been edited by two independent editors. In all my books I have received reviews both good and bad. You have to take that with the territory. It sucks but it’s reality. What hadn’t happened until I made this book free were the nasty reviews. While I subscribe to the thought that if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all, I understand the need for all kinds of reviews. Mostly. Downright nasty ones….I don’t understand. For example, on iTunes i have had a few thousand free downloads. I have an average star rating of 4.5 out of 5 but only 2 reviews. Both which are about two sentences that just say my book is the worst thing they ever read. Ok, I get it. You don’t like my style. I usually love reading reviews, even the bad ones, that point out several reasons why they didn’t like my book. It helps me grow as a writer. But if all you have to say is it sucks without an explanation then why bother? I admit I let it upset me until I started reading D.D. Scott’s new book 10 Years and 24 hours to Indie Publishing where she showcased some good reviews along with some bad. I then realized we all get shitty reviews. It comes with the territory and you have to just let it roll off your back and move on.

So all you haters out there…..sorry if you don’t like what I write but I’m not going to quit. What’s the saying? What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger? Damn straight!

Laina

Who doesn’t love free?

[image error]I love free, who doesn’t? With that in mind I had planned for a while that once I released my 5th Presley Thurman book I would make the first one free. Why? Well besides the obvious, we all like free things, I wanted to celebrate actually finishing 5 books and then the even more obvious of trying to get more readers exposed to the Presley Thurman series by enticing them to download a free book.

I have to say so far it’s a roaring success. In a week of my book being free there have been approximately 7000 downloads. Not too shabby! The real upside is it has spiked the sales of my other books and I am loving that. While I do make my living as an author and money is always nice my joy truly comes from knowing so many people are reading my books. I enjoy entertaining people through words and it gives me immense satisfaction to know that I am able to do so at least with this book  for free.

Get your free copy now on Kindle, Nook, iTunes.

Tea cup, witches broom, and other fun things

[image error]I was reminded a couple weeks ago how many things span the generations. Things such as the string figures that as a kid I would have never imagined doing with my kids and as an adult had completely forgotten. Then my daughter came home one day all excited to show me what she could do with a piece of string and I exclaimed, “I used to do that when I was your age.” I even remembered how to make a couple things and then we looked on You Tube and found many other figures to make. Some I used to know how to do, and had forgotten, and some I had never heard of. It has provided many hours of fun for my daughter and I and it has reminded me how simple things, such as a piece of string, can be so enjoyable.

What do you remember from childhood as being a fun activity?

Laina

Do or don’t do there is no try

I came across this article the other day and thought it made so much sense I had to share. Life in general can be challenging and the three little words that this article says are failure guaranteeing, I will try, are words we need to change to, I will do or I must do. The power of words is huge. Just like the power of thought. The more we can fill our heads with positivity and make sure the words coming out of our mouths carries strong conviction the better off we will be.

What positive words are you saying today?

Laina

Making tomorrow my bitch!

[image error]I took last week off. I didn’t mean too and to be honest I don’t feel I’ve been working enough the last few weeks to “deserve” a vacation and by the looks of my to do list I sure as hell don’t deserve one BUT I took one anyways. I didn’t go anywhere glamorous but what I did do was unplug, watch a lot of Netflix, and think. I wanted to clear my head, recharge my batteries, and reset my focus for the rest of the year.

When I first woke up this morning I freaked out a little because my to do list had increased in size to an amount that I could imagine managing. Remember the Star Trek episode the Trouble with Tribbles where these cute little fuzzball things just multiplied and multiplied until they were out of control (I watched this with my dad growing up and while I wasn’t a fan I did like this episode as the darn things were cute). Then I realized it was silly to feel this way. I am always going to have a list and I must control the list rather than the list control me. So my focus was organization and making things manageable so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed and rather would be productive and feel accomplished. I would like to say I was successful today and even though it is almost 9:30pm and I am just writing this blog post that should have been posted hours ago I feel good about where I will start my day tomorrow.  It reminds me that you can’t change the past but you can change tomorrow and make it what you want. So beware tomorrow…you’re going to be my bitch! How will you make it yours?

Laina

PS: Leave a comment for a free copy of A Day in the Life of Trixie Pristine!

Help me make Stilettos & Scoundrels FREE for Kindle.

 

Happy 4th of July

[image error]Enjoy fun, sun, and family today or relax with a FREE copy of Stilettos & Scoundrels from iTunes!

July is Reader Appreciation Month

I am excited to announce that July is Reader Appreciation Month. To celebrate the wonderful readers current and future, I have made all my books .99 on all platforms and my first Presley Thurman book, Stilettos & Scoundrels, is free on iTunes and soon to be Nook and Kindle (see previous post on this for how you can help make this free).

As many of you know if you have been following my blog for a while it is my goal to make a living as an author and one of the important things to work toward this goal is to grow my readership. To that end I am going to have some fun and exciting things going on over here at this blog that will kick off after the 4th of July holiday!

What fun are you having to celebrate the 4th of July??

Laina

Help me make Stilettos & Scoundrels FREE

I just recently launched the fifth book in the Presley Thurman mystery series, Gems & Gunshots and to celebrate I want to make the first book, Stilettos & Scoundrels FREE for everyone! Stilettos & Scoundrels is currently free on iTunes and will soon be free for Nook. However, I need your help to make this book free for Kindle.

 

Amazon will only allow us authors to make our books free on a price match. Otherwise the lowest price we can set is .99. So the more people I have tell Amazon that Stilettos & Scoundrels is free on iTunes the sooner Amazon will recognize the free price and make it free for Kindle.

 

If you can take a minute and go to the Stilettos & Scoundrels page on Amazon and then about half way down the page you will see a place to give feedback on lower prices. You click on that link and tell them the book is free on iTunes and here is the link to the free iTunes book as they will want it http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/stile....

 

Thank you in advance for your help in making this book free for all readers everywhere!

Laina

 

Waiting…I hate waiting

I have not blogged in a while because I have a new website look that’s been in development and we are at the point where I am so excited about working on the new one that I haven’t felt like working on the old one. However, that’s not really the way I should look at things. I’m just impatient and once I have something new to work on I just want to get that done and not worry about the old.

It reminded me of something I have only learned with age (and still don’t do it well) and that is to enjoy what you have today, enjoy the journey of life, and not to rush past things always looking to the future. Not that you shouldn’t look to the future and plan for the future but rather don’t forgo the present to always be pursuing what might be next. Enjoy all your moments not just the ones you anticipate.

Laina

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